“Even most MSU students don’t dare to go to ‘town,’” a Maranao friend of mine once said.

Marawi City has been hampered with so much negative publicity in the Philippine mainstream that for the people of the lowlands, the only thing that makes them go there would be enrolling or visiting at Mindanao State University—never mind the rest of the city! People are too scared to venture out to the streets of the Maranao city.

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