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AFTER several tense moments, 70-year-old Jamela Sarip Asama breathed a sigh of relief after her application was stamped and approved by the legal unit of the Marawi Compensation Board (MCB) last Thursday.
Earlier, a week ago, the legal unit of MCB found that Asama’s application lacked documentation and asked him to produce it if he wants to pay for his house made of mixed concrete and wood in Marawi City.
“Thank you.” Now I will wait for the board to review my claim,” Asama said.
If approved by the board, Asama will be paid P9,000 per square meter of his house that was destroyed during five months of bombing and fighting between the government military and the Daesh-inspired Maute gunmen in 2017.
Advocate Norossana Alauya-Sani, head of MCB’s legal unit said she stamped Asama’s papers as approved after she was satisfied with all the necessary documentation submitted.
“Actually, we gave Asama a docket number the first time he came here so that he would not have to be reprocessed. All he has to do is quote his docket number and we will check the documents he has to produce,” Sani said.
Sani said Asami’s claims will be reviewed by another group of lawyers and assessors as a second step before the board decides whether to pay him or not.
He said the problems of lack of documentation, affidavits, and sworn statements face most of the claims of the estimated 100,000 residents who lost their properties, assets, and buildings during the fighting that destroyed much of Marawi’s cultural and commercial district.
Sani said that 50 percent of the 1,000 claimants they requested went to the MCB compensation claims office in Barangay Marinaut West in Marawi City.
“Most were able to comply with the required documentation on their return,” he said.
Sani said that they are now averaging 200 to 300 applicants per day. In this, he said that they found both applications to be false.
MCB Chair Layer Maisara Dandamun-Latip said that claimants have two ways to file their claims—one is online at the MCB website and the other is the onsite receiving center in Barangay Marinaut West.
Latiph said that more than 11,000 claimants applied online and more than 1,000 residents visited the MCB compensation claims office in Barangay Marinaut West.
Under Republic Act No. 116961, or better known as the Marawi Siege Victims Compensation Act of 2022, the government provided P1 billion to compensate Marawi residents who lost their properties or had relatives who died because of the fighting.
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