THE Marawi Compensation Board (MCB) seeks to compensate next year 2,500 claimants out of 11,200 validated owners of structures destroyed in 2017 during a five-month combat in Marawi City between government forces and the Islamic State-inspired Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups.

However, with only a billion pesos approved as compensation fund in 2024 instead of the MCB's proposed P7 billion, only around 300 claimants can be accommodated, which means further delaying the return of some 80,000 residents, whose sixth anniversary of liberation from the siege incidentally happened to be on Tuesday.