Call to catch killers of Philippines church workers
-01/07/06
The Presbyterian Church (
Call to catch killers of Philippines church workers
-01/07/06
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is alarmed at the killings of pastors and church workers in the Philippines, some of them from its sister church, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, and has asked the Manila government to bring to justice the killers – writes Maurice Malanes for Ecumenical News International.
“We call upon the Philippine government to bring to justice the killers of pastors, church workers and other Filipinos similarly executed or tortured by paramilitary forces and support the request of our sister church, the UCCP, for a full inquiry into these murders, which terrorise local populations and dishonour the reputation of the Philippines,” the denomination’s June general assembly declared in a resolution.
The resolution was forwarded to Ecumenical News International by Lei Garcia, executive director of the Church Office for International Network in the Philippines, a church-based human rights watch group also known as CONTAK.
The church asked the US government, through its ambassador, Kristie A. Kenney, to communicate to the Philippine government the “grave concern” of US citizens for these “egregious abuses” and “to insist on the maintenance of the rule of law and to provide for an open, civil society in the Philippines”.
The US denomination cited 18 killings of pastors and church workers, but CONTAK Philippines updated the figure to 22, eight of them killed in 2006. Of those killed since 2003, 14 belonged to the UCCP.
The latest victims were Tito Marata, the provincial officer of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and a member of the Farmers for Agrarian Reform Movement, and couple George and Maricel Vigo, both connected with church-based media and humanitarian organizations dealing with victims of armed conflicts in southern Philippines.
Marata was killed on 17 June, a day after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo committed one billion pesos (19 million US dollars) for an “all-out war” to end in two years the 37-year communist insurgency in the country. The Vigo couple were killed on 19 June 2006.
The PCUSA further asked the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, to request the UN human rights body to investigate the “deteriorating human rights situation and the murders of all church people from April 2003 to the present”.
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches]
Call to catch killers of Philippines church workers
-01/07/06
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is alarmed at the killings of pastors and church workers in the Philippines, some of them from its sister church, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, and has asked the Manila government to bring to justice the killers – writes Maurice Malanes for Ecumenical News International.
“We call upon the Philippine government to bring to justice the killers of pastors, church workers and other Filipinos similarly executed or tortured by paramilitary forces and support the request of our sister church, the UCCP, for a full inquiry into these murders, which terrorise local populations and dishonour the reputation of the Philippines,” the denomination’s June general assembly declared in a resolution.
The resolution was forwarded to Ecumenical News International by Lei Garcia, executive director of the Church Office for International Network in the Philippines, a church-based human rights watch group also known as CONTAK.
The church asked the US government, through its ambassador, Kristie A. Kenney, to communicate to the Philippine government the “grave concern” of US citizens for these “egregious abuses” and “to insist on the maintenance of the rule of law and to provide for an open, civil society in the Philippines”.
The US denomination cited 18 killings of pastors and church workers, but CONTAK Philippines updated the figure to 22, eight of them killed in 2006. Of those killed since 2003, 14 belonged to the UCCP.
The latest victims were Tito Marata, the provincial officer of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and a member of the Farmers for Agrarian Reform Movement, and couple George and Maricel Vigo, both connected with church-based media and humanitarian organizations dealing with victims of armed conflicts in southern Philippines.
Marata was killed on 17 June, a day after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo committed one billion pesos (19 million US dollars) for an “all-out war” to end in two years the 37-year communist insurgency in the country. The Vigo couple were killed on 19 June 2006.
The PCUSA further asked the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, to request the UN human rights body to investigate the “deteriorating human rights situation and the murders of all church people from April 2003 to the present”.
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches]