Seeing Between the Rubble in a Militarized Mindanao, Philippines

​Maguindanao. 2017. Civilians are seen lining up in a military checkpoint. The soldiers are part of a battalion serving in Mindanao, South of the Philippines, and home to the second oldest internal conflict in the world. Mindanao is currently under military rule, or martial law, due to the siege in Marawi and the rise of insurgents pledging to ISIS. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Maguindanao. 2017. Soldiers are seen heading out for an operation targeting the BIFF, following the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Maguindanao. 2017. Local police are seen inside the police station, as they collaborate with the Armed Forces to conduct anti-drug operations. As the anti-drug campaign has become part of the Duterte administration’s political agenda, more and more operations focus their efforts on the war on drugs across the Philippines. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

​Maguindanao. 2017. Guns and ammunition confiscated from various terrorist groups and drug rings. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Maguindanao. 2017. To encourage camaraderie and brotherhood, soldiers eat their meals ‘boodle fight’ style, the military practice of eating a meal by hand, on banana leaves. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Maguindanao. 2017. Martial law happened in Mindanao after the Marawi siege. A soldier inspects a passenger bus in a checkpoint as part of their execution of martial law. The men were asked to leave the bus so they can have their identities confirmed. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

Maguindanao.2017. Soldiers are seen during their training in a camp south of Marawi. Following the siege, the military increased a focus in their training for urban combat.​ © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Maguindanao. 2017. Soldiers relaxing in their quarters. Following the Marawi siege, military units in Mindanao shifted their focus of training in urban combat. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Maguindanao. 2017. Soldiers are seen during marksman training. Following the Marawi siege, military units in Mindanao shifted their focus of training in urban combat. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Maguindanao. 2017. Soldiers are seen posing for their own social media photos. Members of this unit of the military are mostly from the Mindanao region.​ © Hannah Reyes Morales

Maguindanao. 2017. A local government unit summit was held in Maguindanao following the Marawi siege. As the anti-drug campaign became the focus of the Duterte administration’s political agenda, more and more operations across the Philippines became largely about the war on drugs. Following the Marawi siege, terrorism and illegal drugs became the primary agenda in local government efforts in Mindanao.​ © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. City ruins are seen through a rooftop in the battle area in Marawi City. It has been more than a year since the Philippine military declared the Muslim-majority city of Marawi “liberated” from ISIS-linked militants. But the ravaged city is still waiting for billions in promised infrastructure and aid to arrive. Over a hundred thousand people remain displaced, and analysts say that militants are returning to the area, preying on growing frustration with the government’s inability to maintain stability. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. A child is seen in a makeshift classroom in an evacuation camp. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. Destroyed buildings in the main battle area of the Marawi siege are seen during sunset. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. A former classroom is seen in the main battle area of Marawi. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Norhata, an overseas Filipino, returns to her home for the first time since the Marawi siege. Her home, which she had saved up since she began working in Saudi Arabia more than a decade ago, was left in chaos in the wake of the siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Photos are laid out in the rubble of the home of Norhata, an overseas Filipino worker who came home after the Marawi siege. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 8. 2019. A Filipino soldier walks inside a Catholic church in the main battle area of the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 8. 2019. An abandoned car, overgrown with vines and flowers, is seen in the main battle area of the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Moro men are seen during salah in a tent serving as a temporary prayer area for displaced residents of Marawi, in the wake of the Marawi siege. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. Aisah Riga (center) is seen insider temporary housing with her family after having been displaced from their home during the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 8. 2019. A billboard saying ‘Marawi will rise again! Soon….’ is seen against a backdrop of ruins from the Marawi siege. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 8. 2019. A Filipino soldier is seen by an ‘I Love Marawi’ sign, still damaged a year after the area was declared free from ISIS-linked militants. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 8. 2019. A soldier is seen in the Grand Mosque, which was destroyed during the Marawi siege. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. A Moro woman is seen looking at a family photo album that she found in the rubble of her relative’s destroyed home. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Moro men are seen during salah in a tent serving as a temporary prayer area for displaced residents of Marawi, in the wake of the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Temporary housing units in the outskirts of Marawi. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. Aisah Riga (center) is seen inside her temporary housing with her family after having been displaced from their home during the Marawi siege.

​Marawi, Philippines. January 10. 2019. Children are seen in a makeshift classroom with their teacher in an evacuation camp. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Engineers scope the main battle area of the Marawi siege in order to assess the reparations or demolitions necessary for rebuilding. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. A couch is seen in the rubble of the main battle area of the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Broken house objects intermingle with overgrowth in the rubble of the main battle area of the Marawi siege. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. A moro woman is seen rummaging through the rubble of her sister’s destroyed home, which she was the caretaker of before the city of Marawi was besieged. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

​Marawi, Philippines. January 9. 2019. Tents for displaced people are seen in the outskirts of the city of Marawi. © Hannah Reyes Morales

Marawi, Philippines. January 11. 2019. Almira Binasing, (center) is seen with her family in their tent home in a camp for internally displaced people in the wake of the Marawi siege. ​© Hannah Reyes Morales

Photo credit

© Hannah Reyes Morales

Currently viewing slideshow. View photo gallery.

Seeing Between the Rubble in a Militarized Mindanao, Philippines

Authors: Hannah Reyes Morales, Dr. Alexander L. Fattal • Resource type: Art

Share

Hannah Reyes Morales’s photographs take us into the battle to control Mindanao in the southern Philippines, where a growing number of insurgents have pledged allegiance to ISIS. Her images are a testament to the Philippines government’s heavy-handed treatment of the operational environment, turning entire areas to rubble in its bid to wipe out the insurgent threat. Returning with residents after the Marawi siege of 2017, Reyes Morales documents the devastation of homes destroyed and residents left to pick up the literal pieces of their belonging. Family albums lie in tatters, vegetation grows over abandoned vehicles, the church is pock-marked with bullets, the destruction seems total.

The graffiti on walls is revealing. In one frame “Soldiers are friends of the Muslims” is scrawled next to a gaping hole in the wall. On other walls ISIS has left its mark. The battle for hearts and minds, which has such a long history in the Philippines, can take an ironic turn under Reyes Morales’s lens. She photographs the “I ‘heart symbol’ Marawi” sign, which too is bullet-ridden. She takes the picture from behind as a soldier patrols along its giant letters, a damaged mosque in the background. The image is symbolic of dreams destroyed: dreams of the area as a tropical tourist destination, dreams of development, dreams of the type of tranquility conducive to piety, all shot-up to the point of non-recognition.

Rebuilding has been slow. In the meantime, residents languish in temporary shelters. The operational environment looks decreasingly operation, yet the environment is as deadly as ever, prone to natural shocks such as cyclones and floods. Mindanao is a curious theater for the war on terror, an area where legacies of Cold War counterinsurgency meet the ever-changing assemblage of Islamic extremism. The scenery in Reyes Morales’s images provides a cautionary tale of the costs of approaching complex problems with the unflinching military force, which might serve to radicalize future generations.

— Alexander L. Fattal

Assistant Professor

University of California, San Diego

Copyright information: Photos are copyright © Hannah Reyes Morales.