Ecumenical delegation to visit the Philippines
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Bishop Solito Toquero |
June 2, 2005 By United Methodist News Service An
ecumenical delegation will visit the Philippines to collect facts about
political repression and offer pastoral support to affected churches
and families. United
Methodist Bishop Solito Toquero of Manila and Sharon Rose Joy
Ruiz-Duremdes, chief executive of the National Council of Churches in
the Philippines, urged the visit. "Now
more than ever, we are seeing the church under siege only because she
has decided to take up her cross and follow Jesus through his Via
Dolorosa," they wrote in a May 16 invitation. "Church people who have
walked alongside our struggling people have joined the myriads of peace
advocates and human rights defenders whose lives have been snuffed out." Most recently, the Rev. Edison Lapuz, a pastor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, was brutally murdered. The
delegation -- which is being arranged through the World Council of
Churches and the Christian Conference of Asia -- will visit the
Philippines July 15-21. The council hopes to set up meetings with
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, military authorities in Central Luzon
and Eastern Visayas, and representatives of the Department of National
Defense and the Senate Committee on Human Rights, as well as church
leaders and members of nongovernmental organizations. Among
the areas the delegation will visit is Samar, a province in Eastern
Visayas where most of the recent killings have occurred, and Hacienda
Luisita, a sugar cane plantation where striking peasants and farm
workers were massacred. The
Rev. R. Randy Day, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries, said in a recent statement that the situation in the
Philippines is "deeply disturbing to the Christian conscience."
Day
has joined with Protestant leaders in the Philippines in calling for a
full and fair investigation of the May 12 murder of Lapuz, who was shot
while he slept. Alfredo Malinao, also a grassroots organizer, died after
the late night attack on a house where a group had gathered following a
funeral. Both
were involved with a human rights organization, Promotion of the Church
People's Response, which has highlighted what it considers the unjust
social, political, and economic practices permitted by the
administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo. Bishop Elmer M. Bolocon,
United Church of Christ chief executive, had reported that 50 people,
including six church members, have been ambushed or assassinated in 2005
on the islands of Leyte and Samar. Day
joined with Toquero in calling upon the president to investigate the
murders of Lapuz and others. "I plead with the government," Day said,
"to establish fair economic policies and to control the use of violence
against those who question current practices." The mission executive
noted that he attended Sillman University in the Philippines and has a
deep affection for the country and its people.
In a May 16 statement,
Bolocon noted that Lapuz "was pastorally responsible for expressing the
church's alarm and concern over the recent shooting of one UCCP member
and the killing of another in his conference. The Rev. Lapuz
unflinchingly maintained his firm commitment to stand for justice and
righteousness; he set aside the death threats he was receiving as an
attendant risk to the prophetic call." Addressing
"the perpetrators of the dastardly act of assassination and murder,"
Bolocon declared that by eliminating "the perceived 'enemies of the
State' this way, you are, in fact, escalating the cycle and level of
violence, leaving the people more and more limited options in seeking
redress of wrongs."
Numerous church leaders, Protestant and
Catholic, have warned against a trend toward martial law in the
Philippines, with opponents coming under intimidation and attack. In
a separate May 16 statement, Toquero said the increase in killings of
peace advocates is "leading us to think that a systematic plan of
silencing people expressing dissent is on a full-scale implementation."
He
cited the United Methodist Church's Social Principles, which state in
Paragraph 164: "We hold governments responsible for the protection of
the rights of the people to free and fair elections and to the freedoms
of speech, religion, assembly, communications media, and petition for
redress of grievances without fear of reprisal; . . . We also strongly
reject domestic surveillance and intimidation of political opponents of
governments in power and all other misuses of elective or appointive
offices. . . . the mistreatment or torture of persons by government for
any purpose violates Christian teaching and must be condemned and/or
opposed by Christians and churches wherever and whenever it occurs." News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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