Risks of Christian Leadership

At least 26 priests have reportedly been killed, kidnapped or injured in attacks since 2001.

On Monday (January 28), Father Giancarlo Bossi – a PIME missionary kidnapped by militants in June last year and released 40 days later – returned to the Philippines after a six-month absence.

Fr. Bossi hopes to return to Payao in Zamboanga Sibugay, but “it may not be that easy,” a representative of the CBCP has stated. The PIME council will first assess the risks; officials have repeatedly warned foreign missionaries to take extra precautions in the troubled south.

With threats growing against Christian clergy in the south, many are increasingly being assigned soldiers as bodyguards. Police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao last week reportedly confirmed threats against local and foreign Catholic priests in some areas of the region. At press time, armed soldiers were reportedly taking up positions outside some churches to protect against attacks.

On March 10, 2007, a fire in the southern Philippine town of Laminusa destroyed 15 houses, 11 of them belonging to converts from Islam, and killed an elderly woman and a 5-year-old girl, according to Christian support organization Open Doors. In 2006, three men gunned down pastor Mocsin L. Hasim of Zamboanga, southern Philippines, and his 22-year-old daughter Mercilyn on June 3.

Hasim, with the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church of the Philippines, was involved with ministry to Muslims.

In the eastern province of Leyte, on January 23 a 60-year-old leader at the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Felicisimo Catambis, was shot to death – reportedly suffering multiple gunshot wounds in the back from one of two unknown assailants on a motorcycle. Several other members of the church have reportedly been murdered in the last three years.

An investigator said Catambis was not known to be a involved with any militant group, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Religious Roots of Conflict

The southern part of the country, particularly the Bangsamoro Muslims (commonly known as Moros) has resisted non-Islamic influences for at least 300 years. The Philippine government established an Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao in 1987, but the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and other armed groups rejected this measure and returned to armed struggle.

Peace talks between the government and an MNLF split-off, the MILF, stalled recently, with a Malaysian-backed peace monitoring team threatening to leave the country if an agreement is not reached this year. The MILF has threatened further violence if the Malaysian peace team withdraws.

Guiamel, a Mindanao resident interviewed by the Philippines International Review identified only by a single name, said religion was definitely a factor in the conflict. “Among Muslims there is still apprehension that the missionary work of the church is partly Christianizing Muslims,” he said. “So there is … ongoing mistrust because of unresolved prejudices.”

Guiamel – who attended a Catholic university and has since faced discrimination because he was “with the priests” – said the fact that Christian schools now provide a prayer room for Muslim students is a “victory of the struggle of the Moro people.”

In 1984, a year before Fr. Favali was murdered, PIME missionary Father Sebastiano D’Ambra founded Silsilah, meaning “chain,” indicating a chain of events bringing man ever closer to God. The hope was to facilitate peace between Muslims and Christians.

This January, a Christian and a Muslim were chosen to take over the leadership of Silsilah and intensify initiatives to promote peace.

The tangled frame of Fr. Favali’s motorbike, set alight by Manero, still remains on the grounds of the cemetery. As Manero and Fr. Geremia meet at Fr. Favali’s graveside, an opportunity for peace beckons.