Category: News

Statement of the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF) on the Arrest and Detention of Australian Missionary Sr. Patricia Fox

Photo credit: The ABS CBN

“Be alert and vigilant. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)

The Church in the Philippines lives in perilous times as an increasing number of clergy, religious and church workers face unspeakable violence and whose rights are violated by President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Church people who join the pilgrimage of poor communities and support their struggle for justice, peace and human dignity suffer state-perpetuated political persecution.

The assault against Sister Patricia Fox, who is an Australian religious missionary and the regional superior of the Our Lady of Sion Sisters in the Philippines, is the most recent blow against church workers and religious institutions. For the past 27 years, she has immersed herself in the arms of the toiling Filipino masses and worked hand-in-hand with farmers, supporting through her prayers and selfless service their struggle for land and life.

Sr. Pat, as she is known in the ecumenical community, was illegally arrested by elements of the Bureau of Immigration at her residence in Quezon City. She was detained for two days, from April 16 to 17, following allegations of her participation in political actions against the Philippine government. The soft-spoken and good-natured missionary nun was released, following the strong condemnation of faith communities, the human rights defenders, and members of civil society groups and peoples’ organizations.

The Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum strongly denounces this absurd action taken by Duterte’s administration against Sr. Pat. We express outrage at this evil-doing and demand that all politically motivated harassment against human rights defenders, peace and justice advocates, political activists, and church workers be put to stop.

We cannot comprehend why church people become targets of political persecution. When has it become a crime to accompany the poor and the oppressed in their struggle? When has it become a crime to preach the words of God and live-out the works of Christ?

Recent events manifest a systematic state-sponsored attack on church people. On December 4 last year, Catholic priest Marcelito Paez was killed after facilitating the release of a political prisoner. On May 11, 2017, Iglesia Filipina Independiente Bishop and peace advocate Carlo Morales was arrested, detained for nearly a year, and was recently released upon the granting of his bail plea.

We hold the Duterte government accountable for the many cases, documented or otherwise, on the persecution of church people. This situation only reveals the hands of a despotic government that seeks to suppress the Church’s role as a moral compass of the society.

We vehemently condemn the mounting cases of political and religious persecution under Duterte’s tyrannical and dictatorial rule. We demand that this administration stop the increasing and increasingly hostile attempts at silencing church people who accompany those that experience far more greater historical and structural injustices.

The plight of Sr. Pat sends a chilling message to everyone. The persecution of church people does not only reveal the sword of a despotic government that seeks to suppress the Church’s role as a moral compass of society. It is a demonstration of this administration’s noxious attempts to criminalize legitimate dissent. This serves as a prelude to more intensified state-perpetuated violence against those who work for peace, justice and the promotion of human rights.

We, therefore, call upon all Christians and to all people of good will to boldly resist state violence and political oppression, and continue to stand up for and work in solidarity with the poor, deprived and oppressed, so that justice and peace may reign and life, in all its sanctity and dignity, can be enjoyed.

For God’s people,

                             
Bishop Deogracias Iniguez, Jr., D.D.                  The Rt. Revd. Felixberto L. Calang, IFI 

EBF Co-chairperson                                                   EBF Co-chairperson

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses an event with Filipino community in Hong Kong, China April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Andrew R.C. Marshall

(Reuters) – Clarita Alia knew what was coming.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses an event with Filipino community in Hong Kong, China April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

I met her with Reuters colleague Manny Mogato in May 2016 in a slum in Davao City, just after its long-time mayor, Rodrigo Duterte – also known as “The Punisher” – was elected president of the Philippines. Four of Alia’s sons were killed in Davao in a brutal anti-drug campaign that Duterte had vowed to take nationwide.

“Blood will flow like a river,” Alia predicted.

She was right.

Within months of Duterte taking office in June 2016, police or unidentified gunmen had killed thousands of drug suspects. And so, joined by another colleague, Clare Baldwin, we began our in-depth reporting of “Duterte’s War” that would win Reuters the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

Read the investigation here:

At first, we focused on telling the tragic stories of drug-war victims and challenging false claims by the Duterte administration. In 2017, we set ourselves a bigger and riskier goal: to expose the killing machine behind those deaths – the Philippine police – and name the killers themselves.

We did this by melding data journalism, multimedia and shoe-leather reporting. Clare and I accessed and analyzed a trove of official crime reports, security camera footage and crime scene photos. This allowed us to identify not just new patterns in the killings, but also the top killers.

We corroborated our findings with months of reporting in slums and hostile police stations, often working as a team to watch each other’s back. Clare was greeted at one station by homicide detectives who shouted and lifted their shirts to display their guns.

Human-rights groups blamed thousands of vigilante-style killings on the police or their associates. The police publicly denied this. But two senior officers – one of them, at times, trembling with nerves – told Clare and Manny that police had carried out most of these killings. That story also cited a secret report, leaked to Manny, that detailed how police received cash for executing suspects, planted evidence at crime scenes and disabled security cameras in neighborhoods where they planned to kill.

What gave our stories their potency – and what so enraged the Duterte administration – was our use of the Philippine police’s own data, mainly in the form of crime reports, to undermine and disprove official claims. As 2017 went on, the police made it harder to get information about their deadly operations, while the government started its own campaign to counteract what it said was “fake news” about drug-war killings.

Even so, we continued to pry data from the police by making calls, writing letters and visiting stations to inspect and record blotters and other original documents. This allowed us to identify a deadly police unit from Duterte’s hometown – the “Davao Boys.” Armed with this data, Clare and I retraced the unit’s lethal path through Metro Manila’s streets. When Clare asked one Davao Boy why he had been chosen for the unit, he smiled and replied: “Special kill skills.”

Reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Philippine police use hospitals to hide drug war killings

BLOOD ON THE STREET: The aftermath of what police said was a shoot-out with three drug suspects beneath MacArthur Bridge in central Manila in June. The three men were pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

Since late 2016, police have delivered hundreds of drug suspects to Manila hospitals. A Reuters investigation has revealed almost all were dead on arrival. Witnesses and family members say they were executed and their bodies removed from the scene in a police cover up.

By Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall Filed June 29, 2017, noon GMT

MANILA – The residents of Old Balara hid in their homes when gunfire erupted in their Manila district last September. They didn’t see the police operation that killed seven drug suspects that night.

But they witnessed the gory aftermath and it haunts them still.

That night, Herlina Alim said she watched police haul away the men’s bodies, leaving trails of blood. “They were dragged down the alley like pigs,” she said. Her neighbor Lenlen Magano said she saw three bodies, face down and motionless, piled at the end of the alley while police stood calmly by.

It was at least an hour, according to residents, before the victims were thrown into a truck and taken to hospital in what a police report said was a bid to save their lives. Old Balara’s chief, the elected head of the district, told Reuters he was perplexed. They were already dead, Allan Franza said, so why take them to hospital?

An analysis of crime data from two of Metro Manila’s five police districts and interviews with doctors, law enforcement officials and victims’ families point to one answer: Police were sending corpses to hospitals to destroy evidence at crime scenes and hide the fact that they were executing drug suspects.

Thousands of people have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte took office on June 30 last year and declared war on what he called “the drug menace.” Among them were the seven victims from Old Balara who were declared dead on arrival at hospital.

A Reuters analysis of police reports covering the first eight months of the drug war reveals hundreds of cases like those in Old Balara. In Quezon City Police District and neighboring Manila Police District, 301 victims were taken to hospital after police drug operations. Only two survived. The rest were dead on arrival.

The data also shows a sharp increase in the number of drug suspects declared dead on arrival in these two districts each month. There were 10 cases at the start of the drug war in July 2016, representing 13 percent of police drug shooting deaths. By January 2017, the tally had risen to 51 cases or 85 percent. The totals grew along with international and domestic condemnation of Duterte’s campaign.

This increase was no coincidence, said a police commander in Manila, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. In late 2016, he said, police began sending victims to hospitals to avoid crime scene investigations and media attention that might show they were executing drug suspects. A Reuters investigation last year found that when police opened fire in drug operations, they killed 97 percent of people they shot.

The Manila commander said police depended on emergency room doctors being too focused on the patients to care about why they were shot. The doctors “aren’t asking any questions. They only record it: DOA,” he said.

But five doctors told Reuters they were troubled by the rising number of police-related DOAs. Four said many drug suspects brought to hospital had been shot in the head and heart, sometimes at close range – precise and unsurvivable wounds that undermined police claims that suspects were injured during chaotic exchanges of gunfire.

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Photo credit: Partido Manggagawa

Reacting to Malakanyang spokesperson Harry Roque’s statement that labor groups could expect a pro-worker Executive Order on or before Labor Day, Partido Mangggagawa Chair avers, “it remains to be seen”.

“Labor groups have gone through five drafts, and every draft was rejected by employers led by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the DOLE did nothing. Waiting for a pro-worker EO therefore that is agreeable to the employers is like waiting for a crow to change its color white”, Magtubo explained.

The 5th labor-drafted EO, Magtubo said, “contains government’s policy of direct hiring in employment relations but offers exemption to jobs or function that can be contracted out subject to consultation with the labor secretary.”

“Only the President can issue a pro-worker EO if he wants to in order to realize his campaign promise. Now is the time that the President should show his political will by signing the labor-drafted EO”, he added.

“Kaya ngang ipasara ng Pangulo ang Boracay para makahinga ang kalikasan. Samantalang ang pro-worker EO ay reinstatement lang ng direct hiring na dati nang polisiya para maibasura ang nagkalat na porma ng kontraktwalisasyon sa bansa na sumisira sa buhay ng manggagawa,” said Magtubo.

PM calls on all labor groups to close rank, stand firm on the position that labor will only accept a labor-drafted EO, and prepare for a nationwide “all labor” mass action on Labor Day.##

Church to focus on rebuilding communities instead of structures, local prelate says

A group of Filipino bishops visit the devastated Catholic cathedral of Marawi on April 14 before its scheduled demolition in June. (Photo courtesy of Duyog Marawi)

UCANews/ Joe Torres

Manila,  Philippines April 16, 2018

The Philippine government is to demolish the 84-year-old Catholic cathedral in Marawi to pave the way for the rebuilding of the war-torn southern city.

Terrorist gunmen desecrated and burned the church when they attacked the country’s so-called Islamic capital in May last year, kicking off a five-month conflict.

Authorities said the cathedral and the bishop’s residence are no longer structurally sound because of bomb explosions, air strikes, and exchanges of gunfire during the conflict.

Terrorist gunmen set the cathedral on fire on May 23 and took Father Teresito Suganob, the prelature’s vicar, and several church workers and worshipers hostage.

They also stormed the bishop’s residence and several other buildings.

The demolition of the structures and the clearance of debris was expected to start in June.

“We will rebuild the cathedral but only after [the Muslims] have rebuilt their city and their Masjids,” said Bishop Edwin dela Pena of the Prelature of Marawi.

He said Catholic Church groups would focus efforts on “rebuilding communities.”

Bishop Dela Pena said that a “simple church” would be built on the site of the cathedral to symbolize the church’s mission of a “reconciling presence” in Marawi.

The prelate led several Catholic bishops on April 14 on a visit to the church, but the Philippine military did not allow them to celebrate Mass for security reasons.

Rey Barnido, executive director of “Duyog Marawi,” said the bishops’ visit “was both a symbol of solidarity [and] a symbolic blessing and prayer for peace.”

Duyog Marawi, or One with Marawi, is a rehabilitation program introduced by the prelature and the Redemptorist missionaries that focuses on healing and peace-building efforts.

Displaced people oppose demolition

A group of displaced Marawi residents have voiced opposition to demolishing any buildings.

The group, Ranao Multi-Stakeholders Movement, decried what they described as the government’s insensitivity to the culture and feelings of the indigenous Maranao people of Marawi.

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Sr. Patricia Fox (in checkered white blouse) is prayed over by Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo at the Bureau of Immigration office in Intramuros, Manila where she is currently detained, April 16, 2018. ROY LAGARDE

By Roy Lagarde

April 16, 2018

Manila, Philippines

Authorities have arrested a 71-year-old Australian Catholic nun and known human rights advocate over allegations that she is an “undesirable alien”.

Sr. Patricia Fox, superior of the Our Lady of Sion congregation in the Philippines, was nabbed by six personnel of the Bureau of Immigration at their mission house in Quezon City at around 2:15pm on Monday.

Wearing a checkered white blouse and a gray skirt, the nun was detained at the BI intelligence division in Intramuros, Manila.

Sr. Fox has been under medication for a spinal cord illness.

BI spokesperson Antonette Mangrobang said that Fox was arrested in pursuant to a mission order issued by Commissioner Jaime Morente.

“We await completion of the investigation before we issue our official statement. Thank you,” said Mangrobang.

Atty. Jobert Pahilga, counsel of Fox, said the nun faces deportation for her alleged participation in protest rallies.

But the lawyer said the fiscal in charge of the inquest recommended for Fox’s release once she’s able to produce her passport, which she gave to travel agency arranging her trip back to Australia next month.

This means that the nun will have to spend the night at the BI headquarters while waiting for her travel document.

Pahilga said the BI will hold Fox’s passport while an investigation is pending.

Sr. Fox has worked in the Philippines for 27 years helping farmers and indigenous peoples.

She recently joined an international fact-finding and solidarity mission that investigated alleged rights abuses against farmers and lumad in Mindanao.

“I’ve been in and out of the country several times but I’ve never been questioned,” Fox said. “The immigration bureau has not said anything on what to do with my missionary visa.”

Human rights advocates and church people including Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo raised alarm over the arrest of Fox.

The prelate, who visited the nun at the BI on Monday evening, said the nun’s arrest may be part of a crackdown against government’s critics.

“There’s no martial law yet but they are already going after people who oppose them,” Pabillo said.

In December last year, a retired priest and known human rights advocate was killed in Jaen, Nueva Ecija province.

Fr. Marcelito Paez, 72, was gunned down by still unidentified men after he facilitated the release of a political prisoner.

Anawim Mission Network is the result of a gathering to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation

Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro speaks during the launch of the Anawim Mission Network in Manila on April 6. (Photo by Mark Saludes/ucanews.com)

UCANews/ Mark Saludes

Manila, Philippines April 9, 2018

Catholic and Protestant church groups in the Philippines have launched an ecumenical solidarity network that aims to promote “political consciousness” among the poor.

The Anawim Mission Network, launched in Manila on April 6, is the result of a gathering of church groups to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

“We saw the need to transform the unity and harmony developed among Christian churches into a mission for the poor,” said Carmelite priest Rico Ponce of the Institute of Spirituality in Asia.

The priest said that as “followers of Christ … we take on the challenge of doing mission together, and together with the poor.”

He said members have promised to share their social capital, organizational structures and material and financial resources with the poor.

The group, whose name is derived from the Hebrew word that means the poor, plans to organize “immersion activities” in urban poor communities and among victims of persecutions.

“Through integration with the basic masses, we will be able to learn their needs, and the things that we could do to liberate them,” said Bishop Deogracias Iniguez of the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum.

The inter-faith group has partnered with tribal groups and organizations of farmers and workers.

Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro said the formation of the new group is an opportunity for Filipino Christians “to confront, in unity, the causes of poverty.”

“There is a need to raise the political awareness of the poor,” said Father Dionito Cabillas of the Philippine Independent Church. “We must show them the connections of the present political situation to their lives.”

Reverend Rex Reyes, secretary-general of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, said it is time for the poor to be heard.

“Amid the falsehood, hypocrisy and tyranny of the present, people of faith need to amplify the voices of the victims and survivors of these maladies,” he said.

President calls Maria Lourdes Sereno his ‘enemy,’ threatens to remove her by force

Philippine Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno speaks before civil society groups in Manila on April 9. (Photo by Mike Taboy/ucanews.com)

UCANews/ Inday Espina-Varona

Manila, Philippines April 10, 2018

The Philippines’ chief justice has accused the country’s president of orchestrating her ouster from the Supreme Court and preventing her from testifying in an impeachment trial.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said the government is persecuting her for protecting the judiciary from President Rodrigo Duterte’s abuse of power in his anti-narcotics campaign.

The president’s “total war” against illegal drugs has reportedly resulted in the killing of thousands of suspected drug users and dealers according to human rights groups.

In a speech before civil society groups on April 9, Sereno challenged Duterte to prove that he has nothing to do with the ouster moves against her.

“His spokesperson will say again that he has nothing to do with it. But Filipinos are smart, they understand what is happening,” she said.

She refuted her critics’ claims of extravagance, which has been used as basis for moves to oust her.

Sereno expressed confidence that she would have the opportunity to defend herself before an impeachment court.

In her strongest speech since Congress started impeachment proceedings against her, Sereno appealed to church leaders to assume “prophetic roles” and fight evil.

“We are not destined for slavery but to freedom. What is evil, we denounce; what is good, we affirm,” she said in a speech before a gathering of the Movement Against Tyranny.

Sereno said she would “not bow to the powers that be,” adding that there are people who told her to “just bow temporarily” to stop the moves against her.

“I cannot, I must retain the ability to look at every citizen in the eye and say fight on with courage, hang on to your principles, never yield, never give up,” said Sereno.

Reacting to the chief justice’s statement, Duterte ordered Congress to speed up the impeachment proceedings.

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The papacy is not a role usually occupied by a prophet like Pope Francis 

Pope Francis leaves at the end of the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) torchlight procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday, March 30 in Rome. (Photo by Filippo Monteforte/AFP)

Father Michael Kelly, Bangkok International April 13, 2018

There is one sociological observation by Jesus that never loses its currency in all manner of settings. When suffering rejection by his family as a disruptive upstart, Jesus made the observations that “a prophet is never recognized in his own country and by his own people,” that is among those who know him, including his family (Mt. 13:57; Mk. 6:4; Lk 4:24).

Is this why Pope Francis generates noisy hostility from a small but vociferous minority? Maybe. But there has to be some explanation for why the dogs were barking very loudly as soon as his recent exhortation on holiness appeared.

I must admit to being completely flabbergasted when I read some of the commentary on what, I thought, was such an innocent and neutral subject.

There was none more bewildering that that penned by a long-time Bergoglio critic, the Rome-based journalist Sandro Magister. But he is not alone — he is part of a small chorus that includes cardinals and bishops who are all absolutely certain this pope is leading the church into error.

But Magister’s reaction — which he posted on his blog (Settimo Cielo) within minutes of the apostolic exhortation’s publication — simply blew me away for not only the distorted and deliberately misleading interpretation of “Rejoice and be Glad,” but also for its venomous hostility to the author.

Magister claims the text was written to nail his opponents and enemies, to make them targets and so create division and discord in the church.

It was sick or weird or both. But it’s not uncommon in Magister’s circles to come up with crazy conspiracy theories that attribute malice where none is meant or effected and no harm is done to anyone.

How on earth could anyone credibly describe something written as an aid to our spiritual journey as yet another contribution to the pope’s determination to divide the church and blame people for their efforts to divide it?

Criticize Pope Francis for his tardiness on doing something more constructive about women in the church, about financial reform or the mess that the communications at the Vatican are in. Or, if you’re from the “right,” take issue with his emphasis on conscience and the “internal forum” for the resolution of moral and marital issues or his championing of migrants or his preoccupation with environmental degradation.

But holiness? What’s going on here? How can you complain about a preacher exhorting a congregation to seek the very thing the religion was formed to foster?

There’s a lot more going on in this campaign against the pope than meets the eye and actually begins a long way away from his views on this or that topic. At heart, I believe there is something happening that the church and especially the Vatican always finds hard to accommodate.

There are two lungs that Catholic Church lives on. The first is the most common and visible. That is daily business of pastoral care, the administration of the sacraments and running church administrative structures. It could be described as “keeping the shop open to serve the customers who come along every day or every week or at least regularly.”

The other lung of the church — sometimes most visibly seen in the life, service and witness of vowed religious — is the prophetic, missionary outreach that does not so much attend to the customers that arrive at the church door as it goes out to find where other customers might be.

The first lung is necessary for keeping the shop open; the second is necessary for seeing that the shop doesn’t have to close for lack of customers.

Rarely do those who are proficient in the maintenance of the institution work well without the structure. Rarely do those outside the structure and focused on growth survive as maintenance managers. But both are needed.

The simple fact is that in Pope Francis, we have a prophetic individual who at the same time runs the shop. And lots of people in the shop (aka the Vatican) find him deeply disturbing.

His adventurous, missionary impulses, his flexibility as he adapts to challenging circumstances and especially his spirituality taken from St. Ignatius Loyola, which underpins his missionary reach, are all part of who he is and why he would feel ill at ease as the boss at the General Head Quarters (GHQ).

He might feel uncomfortable. But as his noisy critics show, he makes a lot of other people feel very uncomfortable. He intimidates them because he suggests by everything he says and does that there is another world beyond GHQ to which GHQ should be an attentive servant.

He is a prophet in an institutional role. Prophets always take a beating from those they threaten. And pointing out, as Bergoglio does from time to time, just how miserable they are just infuriates them.

The fact is that the papacy is not a role usually occupied by a prophet like Pope Francis. He doesn’t fit. And that’s the real reason why some people don’t like him.

Father Michael Kelly SJ is executive director of ucanews.com and based in Thailand.

Pope Francis has contributed the Preface to a book that will be released in Italy on 12 April.

Potere e denaro — new book containing a preface by Pope Francis

By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp

In a preface contributed to a book entitled “Power and Money: Social Justice according to Bergoglio” by Michele Zanzucchi, Pope Francis once again proposes an economic system that favors everyone instead of a few.

The world’s wealth distributed unequally

Pope Francis talks about an “ambivalence” created by the world of finance and commerce. Never before have these two worlds allowed so many people to benefit from so many goods, while at the same time “excessively exploiting common resources, increasing inequality and deteriorating the planet.” He says that during the trips he has taken since becoming Pope he has seen first-hand this “paradox of a globalized economy which could feed, cure, and house all of the inhabitants who populate our common home, but which– as a few worrisome statistics indicate – instead concentrates the same wealth owned by half of the world’s population in the hands of very few people”.

The Church cannot remain silent

The Pope says that issues regarding the economy are not foreign to the Gospel message since they affect people. Neither can the Church remain silent before “injustice and suffering.” Rather, the Church “unites herself to the millions of men and women who say ‘no’ to injustice in peaceful ways, doing what is possible to create greater equity,” Pope Francis writes.

Awareness of the problem is important

One important thing that can be done is making people aware of how grave the problem is. Pope Francis writes that “this is what Michele Zanzucchi has done: gathering, organizing, and making accessible a synthesis of some of my thoughts on the power of the economy and finance.” The Pope describes his teaching as “situated within the path outlined by the rich patrimony of the Church’s Social Doctrine.”

Hope

The Pope concludes his preface on a hopeful note because not even sin “can erase the imprint of God’s image present in every person.” This truth gives us hope that working together the present situation can be improved since “the Lord is in our midst…and therefore is in the world’s factories, businesses and in the banks, just as he is in homes, in the favelas and in refugee camps.”

Book details

Potere e denaro: La giustizia sociale secondo Bergoglio is being released on 12 April in Italy by Città Nuova, the publishing house of the Fololari Movement. It contains a collection of Pope Francis’ contributions on wealth and poverty, social justice and injustice, the care and contempt for creation, healthy and perverse finance, etc. The book is edited by Michele Zanzucchi, a writer and journalist who also teaches journalism. He lives in Lebanon.