Military units honor soldiers, cops killed in 2017 Marawi conflict

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Military units based in southern cities and provinces honored, via special rites on Saturday, October 17, the soldiers and policemen killed in action during the bloody 2017 siege of 12 barangays in Marawi City by the now-defunct Maute and Abu Sayyaf terror groups.

Among the Army units in Mindanao that initiated similar ceremonies, commemorating the 9th anniversary of the liberation of Marawi City from terrorists behind the May 23 to October 17, 2017 conflict in the area, is the 10th Infantry Division, whose commander is Major Gen. Alvin Luzon.

The 10th ID covers cities and provinces inside Region 11, also known as the Davao Region, and also has units in certain areas in Regions 10 and 13.

Records kept by local executives in Lanao del Sur province and units of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region indicate that the hostilities in Marawi City, instigated by the allies Maute and Abu Sayyaf terror groups, now both defunct, exacted up to 168 fatalities from the Philippine Army, the Philippine Marine Corps and the Philippine National Police and also left 87 innocent civilians dead.

Terrorists armed with assault rifles, grenades and B40 rocket launchers, machine guns and mortars, together led by Omarkhayam Romato Maute and his older brother, Omar, and the emir, or ruler then of the Abu Sayyaf, Isnilon Totoni Hapilon, laid siege to 12 of the 91 barangays in Marawi City, capital of Lanao del Sur, in a deadly and destructive religious adventurism that shook the nation to its core and caught international attention.

All three of them were known violent religious extremists who had fomented hatred for non-Muslims and talked so much about the need for Muslims in Southern Mindanao to unite and together create a puritan Islamic state for them.

The trouble in Marawi City that they planned and provoked ended on October 17, 2017, two days after all three of them were killed one after another in gunfights with pursuing soldiers.

Luzon, still a colonel then, was involved extensively in operational planning and intelligence coordination efforts essential to the government’s anti-terror campaign during the five-month hostilities in Marawi City, the capital of Lanao del Sur.

Lanao del Sur was one of the four provinces then of the 27-year and now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, replaced in 2019 with a more empowered Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, a product of a 22-year peace overture between the national government and the southern Moro communities.

“We in the 10th Infantry Division value so much the hardships of the military personnel and members of the Philippine National Police who worked together in driving those terrorists away from Marawi City. We shall never forget the supreme sacrifices, in the line of duty, of the men in uniform who perished in that conflict,” Luzon told reporters on Sunday.

Luzon led their commemoration on Saturday of the 9th anniversary of the government's having cleared Marawi City of Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists, capped off with a wreath-laying event, in honor of the soldiers and police personnel killed during the five-month conflict, at the Heroes Memorial Park in Camp General Manuel Yan, Sr. in Mawab town in Davao de Oro province, where the 10th ID’s headquarters is located.