Tag Archives: Cotabato

[In the Web] Filipino pilgrims commemorate Italian missionary’s death, demand justice

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A supporter of murdered Italian missionary Fausto Tentorio becomes emotional as he lights a candle as other activists hold a banner demanding justice for the priest at the start of a nine-day candlelight protest in front of the Davao City Hall. (photo by Romy Elusfa, InterAksyon.com)

 

DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 27, 2011) – The Justice for Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tentorio Movement led a solidarity mission to mark the 40 days after the killing of the Italian missionary in the town of Arakan in North Cotabato province in the southern Philippines.

Religious and peace groups, including advocates from Davao City joined the pilgrimage to Arakan. Local and international religious communities also participated and expressed support to the pilgrimage participated by some 800 people mostly from North Cotabato.

The Ateneo de Davao Community spearheaded a memorial mass and was followed by an ecumenical program as opening ceremony to this mission dubbed as “Pilgrimage to Arakan: A journey for Peace and Justice.”

The mission also visited Kabalantian village in Arakan to find out the situation of the people there, mostly lumad tribesmen, who were tagged as communist rebels and driven away by the military. The lumads were the beneficiaries of the priest’s various humanitarian programs.

Sister Juleta Encarnacion, of the Missionaries of the Assumption and co-convener of the Justice for Fr. Fausto ‘Pops’ Tentorio Movement, said: “We want a transparent, independent, high profile investigation that will summon the military, the local government and demand accountability to the brutal murder.”

“While it is miserable that after 40 days of Fr. Pops’ death justice remains elusive, we are glad that behind this cause, not only for Fr. Pops, but for the people of Arakan as well, there is an ever growing broad support for this movement,” she said.

Sister Encarnacion was referring to the many signatories from local and international communities supporting the call to End Impunity in Arakan as well as in other parts of the Philippines, and the many individuals and organizations sending letters to the Philippine government demanding swift justice for the slain missionary.

Read more at http://mindanaoexaminer.com/news.php?news_id=20111127044024

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[In the Web] Philippines: Italian priest’s killing revives anti-violence campaign

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In Memoriam: Fr. Fausto Tentorio. Photo from euntes.wordpress.com

The killing of a well-loved priest in southern Philippines has inspired the revival of a campaign to end political killings, supported by international faith and human rights groups, church workers said.

“Those behind the killing of Father Fausto Tentorio may have wanted to create a chilling effect on those committed to the cause of peace and justice. But the impact was otherwise,” Sister Elsa Compuesto, executive secretary of the Sisters Association of Mindanao, told ENInews in an interview on 4 November.

Tentorio, 59, an Italian Catholic priest was gunned down at his church’s compound in Arakan, North Cotabato on 17 October. He was the third member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions slain in southern Philippines since 1985 and the third church worker killed under President Benigno Aquino’s two-year-old government. Aquino has promised a thorough probe of Tentorio’s killing, but no one has been arrested so far.

“A ‘Justice for Father Pops [Tentorio's nickname] Movement’ now sustains the advocacy against political killings in which nobody has been arrested,” said the nun, who collaborated with Tentorio on community health programs. Compuesto noted that 90 priests and bishops along with 3,000 parishioners came to the final Mass for Tentorio besides about 15,000, mostly indigenous folk, who joined the funeral march on 25 October in Kidapawan City.

Compuesto said the rising movement is the parishioners’ way of seeking justice for a missionary “who ate and slept with them, spoke their dialect, and facilitated their community programs.”

Assigned to the Diocese of Kidapawan in 1980, Tentorio ran the diocese-based Tribal Filipino Community Development Inc., setting up 47 daycare centers in the town of Arakan and 23 in the rural areas of Kitaotao and Compostela Valley and in Davao Oriental province. As board member of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, an ecumenical group, Tentorio also collaborated with Compuesto in supporting community-based health programs that tap indigenous herbal medicines in communities hardly reached by government health personnel.

Other church leaders said Tentorio’s fate brought into focus other political killings under the Aquino administration. Supreme Bishop Ephraim Fajutagana of the Philippine Independent Church (PIC) cited the still unresolved June 2010 killing of Benjamin Bayles, a PIC member and human rights worker.

Along with Tentorio and Bayles, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) and other ecumenical groups have also been seeking justice for Rabenio Sungit, a lay leader of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, who was gunned down last 5 September in Palawan.

 

Please read full story at http://www.churchnewsireland.org/news/world-news/philippines-italian-priests-killing-revives-anti-violence-campaign/

 

 

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[In the Web] Church leaders, groups urge Aquino to halt extra-judicial killings

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Father Fausto Tentorio was killed just minutes after celebrating the Mass. Photo fromhttp://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-Year-of-Faith-and-the-martyrdom-of-Fr-Fausto-Tentorio-22933.html

MANILA, Oct. 19, 2011—In snowballing protests against the seeming inaction of government to halt the spate of killings, church leaders and groups called on President Benigno Aquino to act decisively and put a stop on extrajudicial killings and bring to justice perpetrators of the crime.

The recent murder of PIME priest Fr. Fausto Tentorio has once again revealed the “culture of impunity” that has been prevailing in the country because of the government’s failure to provide protection and justice to human rights defenders, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said in a statement.

Pabillo, who also chairs the CBCP-National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace, hit the government’s failure to bring murderers to justice.

He said families and friends of victims need more than just the government’s offer of “condolences” and “condemnation” of the crime.

“Families and friends [of victims] don’t need these futile words,” Pabillo pointed out, adding that “we desire to see these killings stop than be consoled by the platitudes they give in exchange of our grief.”

“No peace workers and human rights defenders should ever live in fear or shed blood because of what they believe in and what they stand for,” he added.

Tentorio was shot eight times by an assassin on October 17 as he was getting into his pick-up truck parked at the Mother of Perpetual Help Church compound in Arakan, North Cotabato.

Fr. Pops, as Tentorio was called by the locals, was a staunch advocate against mining and other extractive operations that threaten the indigenous people. He had been an inspiration to his parishioners as wells as the lumads who have been opposing activities that are harmful to the environment.

 

Read full story at http://cbcpnews.com/?q=node/17291

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[In the Web] Fr. Fausto Tentorio, a martyr for indigenous peoples

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Fr Tentorio in happier times: Photos courtesy of Davao City based human rights group Barug Katungod Mindanao.http://www.balitapinoy.net/journal/736031/Eight_Bullets_Blasted_Life_Out_Of_Human_Rights_Priest

By NARDY SABINO,

General secretary,

Promotion of Church People’s Response

 

 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. ”(Luke 13:34)

“We express our deepest grief and indignation over the killing of Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tentorio, an Italian priest and missionary to the Lumad tribes of Arakan Valley, North Cotabato. There are not enough words to express our sorrow. Father Tentorio served the indigenous people in Mindanao since 1978 and was the head of the Tribal Filipinos Apostolate of the Diocese of Kidapawan until his death. He was gunned down in the morning of Oct. 17, 2011 by helmet-wearing, motorcycle-riding gunmen.”

“We mourn with the members of his religious congregation and share with them their grief. Father Tentorio’s ministry was a great testimony of how the Church can always be in the service of those who have been marginalized and made poor by the system.”

“We are greatly disturbed that such crimes continue to be committed with impunity under the current Aquino administration. Father Tenorio’s murder brings to mind the activists, rights defenders and church people killed during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This recent killing alarms us. Father Tentorio is the third of church people killed under present government—after Benjie Bayles, a member of Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and Abe Sungit of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. All of them were advocates of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Father Tentorio is the 31st church people and second Roman Catholic killed in such manner since 2001. We have but one call: Justice for Father Tentorio!”

“We demand that the Aquino administration hasten the investigation into his murder and make sure that justice is served. Stop the killing of our prophets!”

 

Read full story at http://opinion.inquirer.net/15623/fr-fausto-tentorio-a-martyr-for-indigenous-peoples

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