Matt and Kristin in the Philippines

Below is an article I wrote as part of my work with a peace organization in the Philippines. Since the killings continue, the statistics in it are already out of date.

Here is an excerpt from an email I just received from a friend in the Philippines:

Former IFI Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento was killed last October 3. What angered us is the way the Tarlac police chief hastily declared to media that this was "plain and simple robbery." Lot of Bull.

Three days after, Father Ablon, the priest you met in CDO (Cagayan de Oro City), received a text message saying "Even the Supreme Bishop gets killed. You will be the next sample here in CDO."

And this is the article, which features Father Ablon:

The Mindanao Church Under Attack

Christian Leaders in Mindanao Increasingly Targeted as Victims of Political Repression in the Philippines.

By Matthew Black
Presbyterian Church – USA
Intern, Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao

It seems the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has orders to kill a priest.

Father Antonio Ablon is a priest of the Philippine Independent Church, or Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI). Unfortunately, he is no stranger to harassment from the military. This is, however, the first time he has been on the AFP’s “order of battle,” a list of enemy targets used by the military.

“I think it’s because we are speaking. We are telling people what’s happening. We are criticizing the government.”

Father Ablon pastors a small congregation in the interior of Misamis Oriental, Mindanao, where most of his members are farmers and contractual workers. In 2003, he joined the local chapter of KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights), the primary independent human rights organization in the Philippines. He now serves as the secretary general of the Misamis Oriental chapter.

“I am registering myself as a member of this organization because of my conviction to do this for the people of God. One of the statements of the church is for the church to be one with these groups who seek for justice, abundant life, Shalom. So I registered my name.”

Ablon began experiencing incidents of harassment in 2003 after participating in an independent investigation into human rights abuses in a nearby farming community. Men have visited his office and his family’s home claiming Ablon was a contact for the New People’s Army (NPA), the military force of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He was even challenged to a duel by the spokesperson of the Fourth Infantry Division, then Maj. Johnny Macanas, who also accused KARAPATAN of being a legal front for the NPA. Earlier this year Father Ablon’s name was listed in a full-page add accusing several clergy of being leftists. And only a few weeks ago Ablon was informed by his own Mayor that his name was “most probably” on the AFP’s order of battle.

“[The IFI has] stated that it is the pastoral ministry of the Church to be even in social actions, to be witnesses,” Ablon says. “And I think it is also consistent with the teachings of Christ, with the life of Christ…Jesus was killed, was condemned because of what he was doing for and on behalf of the people, he immersed himself with the people.”

Ablon understands his involvement in KARAPATAN and in social movements as part of his ministry as a priest.

“A priest should be consistent. What he is doing outside the church building in the society, what he is doing inside the church in this congregation, should be consistent. And it should be coming from one conviction: this is the ministry of the church.”

Political Murders Increasing

If the order of battle is acted on, it wouldn’t be the first time a priest was killed by the military. Political killings are on the rise in the Philippines, though the military often denies responsibility, and the assassins are rarely caught. The killings have been systematic and have affected all regions of the Philippines as well as various sectors of society, including progressive party list members, journalists, human rights advocates, lawyers, and community organizers. As the situation escalates, clergy and church workers are increasingly finding themselves as victims of harassment or abuse. More and more, the abuse is leading to murder.

The current attacks on the church is not without precedent in the Philippines. In 1983, Italian priest Tulio Favali was murdered by armed fanatic militia under the direction of Marcos’ armed forces. Fr. Favali was missioning among indigenous communities in North Cotabato when his motorcycle was flagged down by the militia. The manner by which he was killed was grotesque. It is one of the most celebrated cases of human rights violations against a church personality.

Today, progressive groups—including many church leaders as well—have pressured President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to condemn the political killings in the Philippines, which they have argued are tolerated by the administration if not directly ordered. President Arroyo broke her long silence on the issue only recently, condemning political killings during her State of the Nation Address on July 24 (but not without heaping praises on Gen. Jovito Palparan, touted as the executioner of legal activists in Southern and Central Luzon). But the debate as to the state’s involvement in the executions is gaining momentum as the killings themselves increase, with critics pointing to the systematic nature of the killings, their broad geographical distribution, and the similar methods by which the killings are carried out. In fact, the nature of the killings is such that many groups and analysts are now referring to the killings as being part of national policy.

According to the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP), as well as KARAPATAN, a major factor in the increase in killings is the “Oplan Bantay Laya” or “Operation Plan Defend Freedom.” This operation plan of the AFP was implemented in 2002 in conjunction with the U.S.-led “War on Terror,” and initially targeted the Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim bandit groups in Mindanao.

However, in 2003, the AFP shifted the campaign to target the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and it’s armed forces, the New People’s Army (NPA), with the primary goal to destroy it’s “political infrastructure.”

The “priority regions” targeted by Oplan Bantay Laya have seen the greatest number of killings. Two of these regions are in Mindanao.

An AFP PowerPoint presentation called “Knowing the Enemy,” released in 2005, lists many people’s organizations as well as church and religious organizations as part of the communist “Protracted People’s War.” Among them are KARAPATAN, EMJP, Promotion of Church People’s Response, Sisters’ Association in Mindanao, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines, and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP). The UCCP has been the hardest hit among churches, with five of its members and pastors killed already this year.

As of June 30, 2006, KARAPATAN reports 690 political killings since President Arroyo took office in 2001, with the numbers increasing dramatically in the last year and a half (see chart). Seven church people have already been assassinated in the first half of 2006.

Source: KARAPATAN

“There is an increase and it’s massive,” says Maria, a KARAPATAN worker in Mindanao. “Unlike before, the military has shifted its tactics from grave harassments and extreme monitoring and surveillance one step higher to summary execution, abduction, and forced disappearance.”

Maria herself has been a victim of this “extreme monitoring and surveillance” because of her work in human rights advocacy, and she has recently relocated from her assigned region for her protection. Maria is not her real name.

“What is alarming to note is the figures of summary execution in just five months time.”

In Maria’s region, summary executions have nearly doubled since last year. That’s not counting “forced disappearance” or other forms of human rights violations.

“Since [KARAPATAN has] started human rights work in the late 90s up till now, it’s just at this time that we have experienced serious and massive cases of summary execution under Gloria Arroyo. It’s only under GMA that we, as an independent human rights organization, strongly declare that the Filipino people are now experiencing an undeclared martial law under the new dictatorship of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.”

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would consider Maria an enemy of the state. She’s very small, even for a Filipina. She has a ready, shy smile. And she speaks in a soft, steady voice even when obviously impassioned by her work. She is also an active member of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and the daughter of a UCCP pastor.

“Church is for me why I am here, why I am struggling for the people and for the oppressed. Because church is one of the instrumental ways I opened my eyes for this cause.”
Another Pastor Slain
Even before Maria’s own life became endangered, the increase in political repression had already affected her personally. She was part of the team that conducted KARAPATAN’s initial investigation into one of the most recent attacks on the church, the murder of UCCP pastor Rev. Jemias Tinambacan in May 2006, whom Maria had known both through the church and through work in the community.

“He was really an active servant, and his dedication to his ministry, his church work, does not only serve the community of believers but also to the broad masses of the people. From the peasants to the urban poor communities and even to the minorities, he extended his support, his ministry.”

Rev. Tinambacan was driving with his wife, Rev. Marilou Tinambacan, who is also a pastor of the UCCP, when four assailants on two motorcycles attacked his moving vehicle. Tinambacan was shot in the head, the van crashed into a tree, and the assailants fired three more shots towards Marilou after shouting “Buhi pa ang baye!” (the woman is still alive). Marilou survived, and identified one of the assassins as Mamay Guimalan, whom many human rights victims in the region identify as a military asset. Soon after the incident, Marilou filed a case against Guimalan in addition to the police investigation, but he has yet to be arrested or charged by police.

Maria interviewed Pastor Marilou in the hospital the day after the attack. “It was a sad experience,” Maria says. “The sudden death of Rev. Tinambacan is a great loss to the region and the UCCP community.” Pastor Marilou told Maria that even though she had been scheduled to transfer to another position out of the region, she would remain in Mindanao to continue her husband’s work and ministry. “She’s really a strong woman…she’s so optimistic to pursue and to continue what her husband has done.”

And Maria, while not explicitly a church worker herself, nevertheless sees a very clear connection between her faith and her vocation in human rights advocacy. “I feel called for the consistent stand of the church as an advocate of life and peace that is based on justice to continue to denounce and be a part of the people’s struggle at the forefront. […] Being a part of the church community, you cannot disregard your faith dimension from your social involvement and participation for the attainment of peace—peace that is based on justice.”

“Christian” = “Terrorist”?

Bishop Felixberto Calang, who is Bishop of the Diocese of Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon and Camiguin of the IFI, agrees that faith and advocacy are interrelated.

“The work of human rights advocacy must continue, because this is the work of our Lord,” he says. “We are commanded to be just and to be peacemakers, and so [we pursue] the program on peace, the program of human rights.”

Bishop Calang has also been a strong advocate for human rights in the IFI, and he has his own list of harassments and accusations—from “leftist” to “communist” to “terrorist,” including the recent Mindanao-wide full-page add which also included Father Ablon. “As a human rights advocate in this country, you will be subjected to harassments. Doing mission—of course this is mission of the church—doing what our Lord has instructed us to do is tantamount to being called ‘terrorist,’ or a ‘terrorist supporter’ at the minimum.”

Yet despite the danger, Bishop Calang insists that the church is called to respond to the present socio-political situation in the Philippines.

“God…will ask especially the church—his church—to be prophetic enough and to tell the people, particularly the government and those who are in power, to do as what God wills to do. That means our God is saying to us you cannot just sit down and relax. You must tell the people and the leaders of the society to respond to the needs of the abject poverty that the people are experiencing, and transform whatever resources there are in this society for the improvement and the development and the empowerment of the Filipino people.”

“As a church, you must really engage, you should engage, as part of your social ministry to give justice and to speak about justice for and on behalf of the people.”

God Is Already There

Bishop Benjamin Barloso of the UCCP in Mindanao—a longtime colleague of Rev. Jemias and Rev. Marilou Tinambacan—also asserts that the ministry of the church is necessarily centered in the struggles of the people.

“We know the God of the Bible really is the God that hears the cry of the people. And when you know that God is already there amongst the people because he heard, the question now is ‘Where really is the Church?’—because it is the body of Christ.”

In spite of the severity of the attacks, particularly on the UCCP, Barloso says the Church is obligated to speak for people whose voices are not heard by the government.

“I have to speak. Our people are actually voiceless. These are the voices that cannot actually be heard in the halls of policy makers. So again, the Church is being challenged: ‘Can you be a voice of the voiceless?’”

Himself a son of a peasant family, Barloso says the task of speaking for justice and engaging in society is not limited to the leadership of the church, but that the congregational membership should be engaged in the community, because that is where Jesus is.

“What is the body of Christ supposed to be? It should be actually a body of Christ because Christ is already out there. He is actually in the shorelines, he is actually in the valleys, the hills, you know, with the people who are actually striving for life. So if he is already there, it follows that the church should also go there. In other words, the church should not be confined only in the sanctuary.”

Bishop Calang has a similar message to Christian congregations.

“We cannot just sleep while people are struggling. We should and must speak for them, for the oppressed of the Filipino people who are struggling to be free.”

Calang says the church has a responsibility to be involved in the “struggle of the Filipino people, especially the laborers and the workers and the peasants.”

“Spirituality means being involved in the struggle of society.”

“Ministers of the Gospel,” Not “Terrorists”

At the time of this writing the killings continue to increase, approaching an average of one killing per day nationwide. As the situation escalates, so does the emphatic response of churches. Strong statements have been issued by nearly all major denominations in the Philippines, as well as multi-denominational ecumenical organizations, condemning the killings and calling on the Arroyo government to take decisive action to stop the abuses.

“We expressed our strong conviction that the killings must stop and that church leaders and workers must not be targeted and marked as terrorists,” says the United Methodist Church. “This is essential. It is unacceptable that those who are laboring on behalf of Jesus Christ with and for the poor and marginalized are labeled as subversives or leftists or enemies of the state. They are not. They are lay and clergy ministers of the Gospel and are working for a better and more prosperous and just Philippines.”

The UCCP also made a strong statement against “the Current Explosive Breakout In
Human Rights Violations” adopted by its recent General Assembly, a gathering of several hundred representative church leaders in which they “strongly decry and denounce the ongoing unmitigated killings of militants and activists in our society, and hereby call upon the military leadership, especially the Commander-in-Chief, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to immediately cause the stopping of these extra-judicial executions, and to employ all means to bring to justice, without delay, all those responsible in the commission of the crimes.”

The UCCP statement also urges all of its local churches “to organize and mobilize so as to address effectively this particular upsurge in human rights violations.”

But the response is far from limited to Filipino churches. As the situation of political repression increases in the Philippines, international denominations and multi-denominational organizations have also made similar statements to the Arroyo government and also statements of solidarity with churches in the Philippines. The world is taking notice, and it is siding strongly with the victims in the church.

The United Church of Canada described itself as “outraged” to learn of recent killings, and stated: “We condemn the institutions and individuals that are responsible for these unspeakable atrocities.”

The Uniting Church of Australia has also recently released a report entitled “Getting Away with Murder, Impunity for Those Targeting Church Workers in the Philippines,” which concludes “That faithful and nonviolent Christians are the target of such sustained violence amounts to an organized regime of Christian persecution with, at the very least, the tacit approval of the Philippine government.”

Among the very long and growing list of International churches who have issued or signed similar statements are the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Council of Churches.

A Lawyer for the Church

Attorney Connie Jayme-Brizuela has been a long-time advocate of human rights on the legal front in southern Mindanao, and she serves as the attorney for the Diocese of Cotabato of the Roman Catholic Church. She has recently been the target of public remarks from North Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Piñol, who filed a libel case against her after repeatedly threatening to do so over his weekly radio addresses. The libel case accuses Brizuela, as well as two other church workers and a journalist, of slandering Piñol in a written invitation to a prayer rally.

“It was an interfaith rally,” said Atty. Brizuela. “We wanted to pray for peace. We wanted to pray for justice. We wanted [Gov. Piñol] out of our province.”

Piñol’s case does seem dubious. The letter in question is largely composed of other previously written documents, including a statement from junior officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) which condemned the “political maneuvering” of the governor of Cotabato.

“We know that his evidence is insufficient,” said Brizuela. “We know that the letter—that even cited passages from the Bible and provisions from the 1987 constitution—is not libelous.”

Brizuela added that the accusations of harassment directed at Gov. Piñol in the invitation are well documented. “All of these incidents were reported in the police blotter. Those are not mere accusations without substantiated documents.”

Brizuela further asserts that maligning the Governor’s reputation was not the purpose of the letter. “That was not the intention. The intention was to allow the truth to come out.”

The truth, according to Brizuela and Kalampag, a multi-sector alliance for good governance that Brizuela helped to form, is that Gov. Piñol is largely responsible for a long list of harassments, corruption, and other abuses in his province.

In a sign of support for Brizuela and the others accused in the libel case, church leaders and pastors from around the province, including the bishop of the diocese, have signed a letter identical to the original one, condemning actions of Gov. Piñol. No case has been filed against the new signatories.

Most recently, Atty. Brizuela has also become a victim of death threats. Just this past June, on the morning after the murder of a young married couple—both peace advocates and convenors of Kalampag—Brizuela was told through two text messages to “take care” and that she will “follow the fate” of the murdered activists.

“You don’t announce the Good News. You bring it about, and then it announces itself.”

Sister Miriam Noemi Francisco, OSB, is another unlikely activist if you go by looks. A short, thin, middle-aged woman dressed in her Benedictine habit, she speaks quickly and quietly, yet exudes a strength of conviction that is utterly compelling.

“You can’t help but see, and you can’t in conscience just ignore the situation,” she says, speaking of poverty and oppression in the Philippines.

Sr. Noemi has been involved in social movements in Mindanao since the days of martial law under President Marcos, and her faith is one that is decidedly engaged in society for the poor and oppressed.

“The love that we profess for God, for Christ, can only be made true among the people where he most expects to be found. It’s always a challenge in the scriptures, in the Gospels especially. Very, very clear,” she says.

“When we look at the life of Christ, he had friends from all sectors and classes of society, but with whom is he most? Whom did he hand-pick for his immediate disciples, the ones who immediately implement, his second-liners? It’s the very poor, and even fisherman who have all kinds of character foibles and all of that.”

Sr. Noemi is very clear that one’s faith should be embodied and expressed through action in the communities.

“It’s not that we declare [a particular social action] good, and then mobilize forces and resources in order to bring about that good. We don’t declare that it’s good. We just get there and get things done…We bring about good. You don’t announce the Good News. You bring it about, and then it announces itself.”

“Because We Are the Church”

For Father Ablon, this “bringing about” of the Good News is precisely why the Church is here.

“I think for the people to have justice, for seeking the truth, that’s the job of the Church politically and historically.”

Even knowing his name is on the military’s order of battle, Father Ablon is resolute to continue his work of human rights advocacy. His conviction and commitment to serve is not because he is a priest or because he is a member of IFI, but simply because he is a Christian.

“For me as a believer, the things that we are doing, even if we are threatened, if we are killed, should be based on our conviction to Christ, to the God of our salvation. If it is hard for other people to accept why we are part of this movement of the people, they should understand that we are doing this because of our faith, our conviction to Christ, to God. [It is] not because we are maybe one of these political groups, it is because we are the church and we are just following the mandate of the gospel of Christ.”