CBCP condemns murder of Aglipayan bishop

10/05/2006

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) yesterday condemned the killing of Philippine Independent Church (PIC) Bishop Alberto Ramento who was found dead the other day.

“In the spirit of Ecumenism, we express our sympathy to the Supreme Council of Bishops of the (PIC) over the death of Bishop Alberto Ramento. What is saddening and shocking are the circumstances surrounding his killing,” Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the CBCP, said in a statement.

The PIC is popularly known as the Aglipayan Church.

Expressing alarm over the unabated extra-judicial killings, Lagdameo added the CBCP, “in several pastoral statements, has already denounced the increasing number of extra-judicial killings of journalists, activists and militants over the years.”

“What is alarming is that so far the actions that have been taken (by the government) do not yet satisfy the demands of justice especially for the victims and their relatives. As is usually said, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’” he said.

Like Lagdameo, Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a staunch critic of the Arroyo government, also voiced disappointment on the unresolved political killings.

“The killing of churchmen is the summit of socio-political errancy. The murder of a bishop cries to heaven for vengeance. Those who executed him, as well as those in tenure of power and might behind them, cannot be spared from the wrath of God. If human authority with all its multibillion funds for intelligence and for judicial work is basically non-functional, divine providence eventually takes over,” Cruz said in a separate statement.

He expressed doubts that Ramento was a victim of robbery since prior to his death, the Aglipayan bishop had been receiving death threats because of his advocacy against extra-judicial killings, corruption and greed.

“A man who denounced the many and continuous killings in the country has himself become a victim of shameless killing. His blood will certainly water the seeds of many more men and women like him who will continue his unfinished cause,” Cruz said.

He noted that Ramento was a peace-loving servant of God and a “purely simple man who lived in a “dilapidated house and took public buses to commute.”

With the death of Ramento, the CBCP president asked, “Will the case of Bishop Ramento be another reason for us to say this country is no longer safe for those who announce the truth and denounce immortality? The command of God in the Bible is simple and straightforward ‘Thou shall not kill!’”

For his part, Cruz said the country is “becoming more and more drenched with the blood of many individuals whose only fault was seek what is right and just. This has become an upardonable crime in this country. In the same way, to tell the truth is forbidden by the (Arroyo) government under pain of abduction, imprisonment or death.”

Malacañang also yesterday washed its hands off the latest attack on government critics and denied having a hand in the murder of Ramento.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, during a press briefing in Malacanang, said they could not do “such abominable act” and it was a mere black propaganda being raised by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).

Ermita added leftist groups are instigating public fury against the Arroyo administration on baseless allegations.

“Blaming the government on the murder of Bishop Ramento (was) all the handiwork of the CPP-NPA, accusing us of engaging in extra- judicial killings but it is just propaganda because they want to capitalize on it and float that (the government) is part of the alleged extra-judicial killings done by the authorities, which, of course, is not true,” he said.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye echoed Ermita and urged “some sectors” to refrain from blaming the administration.

Bunye called the Ramento murder as “an abominable act that the police must attend to with thoroughness and dispatch.”

Earlier, various militant groups and the National Democratic Front (NDF), of which the CPP and NPA are members, held the Arroyo government liable for the murder of Ramento.

NDF peace panel chairman Luis Jalandoni called the murder “cowardly,” noting that Ramento was a “man of peace, a bishop of the poor and a consistent human rights defender.”

In a statement from Holland, where he is based, Jalandoni said they are holding the Philippine government, “particularly its death squads and special psychological warfare operators responsible” for the Ramento murder.

A former supreme bishop and chairman of the Supreme Council of Bishops of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI-Philippine Independent Church) and provincial leader of the human rights organization Karapatan, Ramento was stabbed dead in the early morning of Oct. 3 in Tarlac, north of Manila.

Jalandoni said the NDF had nominated Ramento in 1998 as an independent observer in the joint monitoring committee for peace efforts between the government and communist rebels.

He scored the Philippine National Police for “irresponsibly and absurdly” claiming robbery was the motive behind the incident.

In Manila, Karapatan called for an immediate and impartial investigation of the murder and the prosecution of the killers.

Also earlier, Spanish Foreign Minister Leon Bernardo informed the Philippine government that a seasoned Spanish diplomat had been chosen to lead a team of human rights monitors who will assist their local counterparts to look into the series of extra- judicial killings upon invitation of Mrs. Arroyo during her visit to Madrid last June.

Ermita had appealed to the local groups not to boycott the invitation sent to them by the Arroyo-created Melo Commission, which, according to Malacanang, is an independent body that will probe the spree of murders.

The President’s aide said the commission being headed by retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Jose Melo will not be “biased” and will not protect the administration in the conduct of the investigation.

Arroyo critics in the House of Representatives also yesterday called for the abolition of the Melo Commission, which they described as a “whitewashing machine” of the President.

Party-list Representatives Teodoro Casino of Bayan Muna and Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis said the commission has failed to gain the trust of victims’ families and witnesses to the killings.

House Minority Leader Francis Escudero (Sorosogon) expressed support for the proposal of Casino and Beltran, noting that the Arroyo-formed body had already taken the side of the military and ignored recommendations of various international and local human rights groups on how to conduct an independent investigation of the political killings. Marie A. Surbano, Sherwin C. Olaes, Jun P. Yap and Dona Policar