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Mourners demand justice as they bury slain Italian priest

ICHRP Secretariat
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Mourners demand justice as they bury slain Italian priest

KIDAPAWAN CITY – People from all walks of life — Christians, lumads, activists, among others — demanded justice as they accompanied slain Italian priest Father Fausto Tentorio on Tuesday to his final resting place in Arakan, a hinterland town in North Cotabato.

Tentorio was shot dead by an unidentified gunman inside the church compound in Arakan town on October 17.

He was buried at the cemetery at the Bishop’s Palace near the grave of another Italian priest, Father Tullio Favali, who was murdered in the 1980s, also in North Cotabato.

Both priests are members of the Pontificio Instituto Missioni Estere (PIME or Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions).

Aside from the two priests, another PIME priest was also murdered in Mindanao, Father Salvatore Carzedda who was killed in Zamboanga City in 1992.

The PIME Fathers have been serving remote communities in the Philippines since 1968.

Tentorio, 59, said to be a staunch anti-mining advocate, has been serving in the Philippines since 1978, a year after he was ordained to the priesthood.

Funeral procession for Tentorio

On Tuesday morning, a funeral procession was held for Tentorio after the Requiem Mass presided over by Kidapawan Diocese Bishop Romulo dela Cruz, PIME missionaries, and other priests.

The bishop noted that Tentorio started his missionary work in North Cotabato just months after Favali was killed in 1985 by a para-military assassin in Tulunan town.

Meanwhile, activists from different provinces in Mindanao also held a funeral march along the highway after the Mass, demanding an investigation into Tentorio’s killing.

The activists also asked the government for the immediate pullout of military troops in Arakan town and other areas in North Cotabato in Mindanao, where several clashes between soldiers and rebels happened in the last few days.

Earlier on Tuesday, Catholic bishops urged the Aquino administration to probe his death and solve the case as soon as possible.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the government must act decisively and swiftly, and investigate thoroughly every angle of the murder.

“How long will evil men continue to plot against those who courageously protest against the sufferings of the poor and the degradation of God’s creation?” outgoing CBCP president Nereo Odchimar said in a statement, according to an article on AsiaNews.

For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

Searching for Tentorio’s killer

According to the the “Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Fausto,” Tentorio sustained 10 gunshot wounds in different parts of his body.

A week after the killing, Chief Supt. Lester Camba, head of the SITG Fausto, said they do not have a sketch yet of the priest’s killer.

“What we have right now is the sketch of a male person who could give a lead to the killing. This person was monitored to have been looking for Father Tentorio for four times since January,” said Camba.

According to Camba, reports saying the police had already released a cartographic sketch of the priest’s killer were not true.

“I have not said that in any interview I had with any media. What I claimed was that the computerized criminal illustration we have right now was not the suspect’s sketch,” he said.

However, Camba said he is not discounting the possibility that the person in the sketch that the police might also be involved in the killing.

“What would be his reason for asking the priest’s whereabouts? Since January, the same person was looking for Father Tentorio for four times. He only asked one question: ‘Where is Father Fausto?’ After knowing that the priest was inside the chapel, he would leave the place. So that raised a doubt,” said Camba.

The STIG Fausto has at least eight witnesses — three church workers, three public school teachers, and a mother and her child.

However, these witnesses have yet to execute their affidavits so that the Police could use the documents for the eventual filing of charges against Tentorio’s killer or killers.

Lived and died among his own people

In his homily during the Requiem Mass at the Our Lady Mediatrix of All Grace Cathedral, Dela Cruz said Tentorio loved the people of Arakan where he lived, worked, and died.

“I know that even if we lost Father Fausto, we are not without hope…. I know we will also have another resurrection,” Dela Cruz said.

The bishop said Tentorio survived many attempts on his life.

In 2003, Tentorio had to seek refuge in another village in Arakan when a group of armed militia was said to be looking for him.

In 2006, later, soldiers in full battle gear allegedly raided the parish where Father Tentorio was holding a dental and medical mission.

Tentorio was allegedly accused of supporting the rebel movement and keeping in his convent a number of wounded rebels.

Tentorio’s legacy: ‘Do justice, show mercy’

In his last will and testament, Tentorio said he wanted the following words to be written on his tombstone, “You’re told, oh Man, what is good… to do justice; to show mercy; and to walk humbly with my God.”

Long before he was murdered, Tentorio already prepared for the worst, telling his friends that he wanted to be buried in a coffin made out of his favorite mahogany tree, one he had planted in their convent in the 1980s.

As an ultimate act of honor, the parishioners have cut down the tree and made a coffin for Tentorio.

“This is what Father Fausto did that we considered his legacy: He showed mercy to the lumads in Arakan town. He sought justice for them when their lands were grabbed from them; when they were harassed by men in arms; when their own government seemed to abandon them,” Dela Cruz said.

During Monday’s vigil, village chieftain and tribal leader Gayotin Tomanding said Tentorio’s death was a big loss to their tribe.

“When we were bereft of assistance of the government, we sought help from Father Fausto. And he would always be there for us. He would always lend a helping hand. He would always give us food if we need to nourish our body. He would give us farm tractors if we wanted to plow our fields… When he died, part of us also died,” Tomanding said in the vernacular.

Tomanding was also in tears when he recounted how Tentorio risked his life just to protect him in the past. – (by MALU CADELINA MANAR, VVP, GMA News)

Aquino’s all-out justice is veiled all-out war — MCPA

ICHRP Secretariat
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Press Statement – President Aquino’s sincerity in the peace negotiation, both with the MILF and NDFP, is put to a tough test today in light of the renewed political crisis in Mindanao.

The 57 extrajudicial killings highlighted by the recent murder of Fr. Fausto Tentorio under his one-year old administration; the NPA attacks against three destructive mining companies operating in Surigao; and the ongoing AFP-MILF armed confrontations in Basilan, Zamboanga Sibuguey and Lanao, should have prompted President Aquino to take more decisive steps to resume the stalled peace talks with the MILF and the NDFP.

Impunity and worsening human rights violations, destructive large scale mining operations in indigenous people’s ancestral lands and militarization, are long standing issues of the people that  need to be discussed and addressed in the peace talks.  Social and justice issues are roots of the decades-old armed rebellion in Mindanao that President Aquino promised to resolve.

Military solution, like all-out war, now pushed by the followers and loyalists of two militarist Presidents of the Philippines, Marcos and Estrada,  both ousted by people’s uprisings, has been historically proven to be ineffective and anti-people.  The likes of Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Panfilo Lacson are incorrigible fascists and unrepentant human rights violators.

Amidst calls from his allies to launch all out war against the MILF and to end the peace talks, President Aquino reiterated that he would “continue with its peace negotiation with the MILF”. The interfaith rights group, Moro-Christian People’s Alliance (MCPA), challenges the President to translate his words into action because his men’s actions on the ground show differently.

The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) headed by Secretary Ging Deles and the negotiating panels headed by Atty. Marvic Leonen (for the GPH-MILF peace talks) and Atty. Alex Padilla (for the GPH-NDF peace talks)  attack and accuse the MILF and NDF of derailing the peace talks. Until now, the peace talks are stalled and there are no concrete signs that these will  progress and move forward.

Now the Armed Forces of the Philippines, with his tacit directive, have started ‘pursuit operations against criminal elements’’ signaled with massive air strikes. President Aquino has categorically stated that he will not wage all out war against the MILF but his all out justice operations has all the characteristics of Estrada and Arroyo’s all-out war against the MILF and the Moro people..  The MCPA assails Aquino’s call for  All Out Justice as a veiled All Out War.#

Reference:
Antonio Liongson
Spokesperson, Moro-Christian People’s Alliance

Fr. Tentorio’s murder related to mining project?

ICHRP Secretariat
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Fr. Tentorio’s murder related to mining project?

Salvaged Italian priest Father Fausto Tenorio had been very vocal in protests against two mining projects that would dislocate Manobos in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato and B’laans in Tampakan, South Cotabato. Prime suspect in the murder, according to news reports, are paramilitary forces.

A barrage of Church protests was led by Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Guttierez, who said, “The government should no longer allow mining like this. I don’t know if they (mining firms) are hiring killers or whatever, but I am worried that one of us would get killed again.”

Mary Manazanan of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) said over Radio Veritas, “The killing … should signal him (Noynoy) to declare a stop on foreign mining in the country.” She cites many similar salvagings of Church workers and journalists where investigations had not yielded any results.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), a coalition of non-Catholic Christian sects, issued a statement which read, “It is not unknown that Father Tentorio spoke against military presence (in tribal villages and). He (Fr. Tentorio) spoke loudly that the state’s security forces have become the tool for people’s insecurity.”

Even Muhammad Ameen, chair of the secretariat of the rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said, “This is brutality and savagery that no civilized men or groups could possible do. (Inquirer, October 19, frontpage).

The proposed Tampakan mine that Fr. Tentorio is protesting against is the largest mining project in the country today, and one of the largest worldwide, a mind-boggling 10,000 hectares, covering four provinces (South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Davao del Sur, and Saranggani) in two Regions, XI and XII. It is a project of the Swiss-British multinational Xstrata in partnership with the local Sagittarius Mining Inc. (SMI). The project has a history of human rights violations, including a tribal protestor shot by a security guard of the mining firm at point blank range, according to interviewed residents.

The proposed tailings dams, the largest in Philippine history, making the infamous Marcopper dam in Marinduque look like a kiddie pool affair, sits at the highest peak. If they burst, toxic wastes would threaten 6 rivers and more than 100,000 hectares of rich agricultural land, at the very heart of Mindanao’s bread basket.

The alleged $6 million dollars the government will earn from the 25-year permit will be dwarfed ten fold by the cost of massive agricultural dislocation in four bread basket provinces in case the dams break. Xstrata hopes to extract 375,000 tons of copper and 360,000 tons of gold per year for the first 17 years of operations. The bulk of this windfall would be expatriated. The government’s $6 million would be a trickle, at such high social and economic cost to its own people.

Xstrata gave the assurance that their dams will be built at state-of-the-art global safety standards. Thirty three such ‘accident proof’ dams have burst worldwide, 16 of them in the U.S. In the Philippines, we also have a good track record of broken dams. Earthquake data reveals that the Xstrata tailings dam sits right underneath a fault. Mining firms build dams as permanent structures, but ironically they are not. In time, they succumbed to old age and die, often years after the mining firms have raked huge profits and left. One day, when everyone is asleep, the killer dam strikes, a deluge of toxic wastes cascading down productive valleys nurturing communities since pre-history, rendering them irreversibly and permanently beyond rehabilitation. Such was the case at the Stave Valley Killer Dam in Northern Italy.

Xstrata came up with a 3,000-page Environmental Impact Assessment, allegedly costing a staggering $75 million. In spite of such costs and details, Clive Wicks, environment consultant for the (International Union for the Conservation of Nature.) (IUCN), an international green organization, said the EIA was flawed, having excluded affected downstream communities as stakeholders. Wicks quotes the very EIA where engineers have warned of the grave risks of the dams.

In spite of these warnings and the fact that there is an existing Provincial ban on open-pit mining, Xstrata is not fazed, confident of its powerful influence to either skirt around the law or have it amended. Indeed, Xstrata’s influence on government is hinted by the fact that the Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision saying that Xstrata’s contract with the government, the Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) was unconstitutional.

Xstrata has succeeded in splintering the Lumad communities in the mine site. Those directly affected at the top of the hill refuse to be bought by Xstrata sweeteners, such as temporary employment and social benefits. Those at the bottom of the hill have embraced Xstrata, appointing their own chieftains and organizing ‘pseudo-tribal organizations’ as visible fronts of the mining project.

The project is scheduled to have its Environment Compliance Certificate (ECC) approved by early 2012, the go signal for the plant to be built, which would hopefully be operational by 2016. It is not too late for Noynoy to intervene in behalf of millions of affected communities in four provinces to scrap the project completely, and pre-empt this largest every potential environment disaster. The Philippine Misereor Partnership, Inc. (PMP), in a press statement, is requesting Noynoy “to reconsider its recent decision of backing the formation and deployment of militias to beef up security for mining operations.” Jaybee Garganera of Alyansa Tigil Mina accused the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of ‘washing hands’ in the affair, with Secretary Ramon Paje said, “We are harmonizing local and national policies toward a more friendly regime for the mining industry.” How about being more friendly to our very own indigenous communities.#

(By Bernie Lopez, Lifted from Opinyon Magazine, “Eastwind Journals” Column, Oct. 24, 2011)

Human rights violation intensify in Arakan, North Cotabato days after Fr. Tentorio’s killing

ICHRP Secretariat
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PRESS STATEMENT – The atrocities perpetrated by the military in Arakan, North Cotabato have intensified following the death of Italian missionary, Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tentorio of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME).

We, from the Karapatan Southern Mindanao (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) condemn the spate of human rights violations perpetrated by the 57th and 38th Infantry Battalions and 10th Special Forces Airborne of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato.

Violations such as extrajudicial killing, frustrated massacre, illegal arrests, indiscriminate firing and forcible evacuation perpetrated by the composite team of 57th and 38th Infantry Battalions and the 10th Special Forces of the AFP were documented by Karapatan in a fact-finding mission held last October 21.

Ramon Batoy, peasant-farmer killed by 57th Infantry Battalion

Last October 20, aroung 6:00 am, elements of the Army’s composite team forcibly entered the house of a peasant-farmer Ramon Batoy, 35, a resident of Sitio Upper Lumbo, Brgy. Kabalantian.

When Ramon Batoy resisted, the soldier hit him with a butt of a rifle. Trying to defend himself and his family, he struck the soldier with his bolo that killed the latter. Three soldiers nearby, one covered with a mask, riddled Batoy with bullets, strafed his house and seven other houses nearby. Batoy’s wife, Gina, 33, and 6 months pregnant escaped with her daughter and son. The military accused Batoy of being a member of the New People’s Army (NPA). The military now insists that Batoy was killed in a legitimate encounter.

Batoy was an active supporter of Bantay Katubigan and Bantay Kalikasan of Mt. Sinaka of the Municipal Agriculture Office of Arakan. He worked as a tenant-farmer for the Mayor of Antipas.

Army soldiers mauled residents, illegally detained civilians and strafed the community

Ramon’s brother, Roger Batoy, 44, suffered from minor wounds on his left foot caused by splinters when the military indiscriminately fired at the houses in the community. He was inside his house with his wife and stepmother. His wife, Janeth noticed bullets passed over her head during the firing.

Also on October 20, soldiers from the 57th IB mauled Noli Badol, 35, farmer and a leader of Sitio Upper Lumbo, Brgy. Kabalantian, Arakan. Badol’s legs and hands were tied. Soldiers also fired at his wife Evelyn, 32, and 8 months pregnant and their children when she attempted to go near Badol. The military took Badol and detained him at the detachment of the 57th Infantry Battalion for several hours.

Celso Batoy, elder brother of Ramon, 47, was also mauled and detained by the soldiers. Celso and Noli are both currently detained at the police station of Ammas Municipality in North Cotabato with trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

Arakan Community: Traumatized, heavily-militarized

The attacks against the civilian community of Arakan have resulted to displacement and evacuation of 136 families. Some 43 families from Sitio Lumbo, evacuated to Binoongan Elementary School for fear of more attacks from the military.

Additional 93 families evacuated to the same school the following day, October 21.

Barely three days after the killing of Fr. Pops Tentorio, scores of families, community leaders and civilians are now being attacked by the military his parish.

What kind of “peace and development” is going on in the communities in Arakan? The military’s “peace and development” actually means the fake surrender of civilians as NPA, mauling, strafing, harassment, threat, intimidation and killing. We are now seeing the true face of Oplan Bayanihan, the current administration’s counter-insurgency program, where scores of human rights violations take place amid the presence of the so-called Peace and Development Teams (PDTs).

What happened to the case of Sunshine Jabinez, the 7-year-old girl killed by an element of the 71st Infantry Battalion in Pantukan, Compostela Valley? Has something been done to the killing of Santos Manrique who was killed because of his opposition to the entry of largescale mining companies in Pantukan? What happened to the father and son Rudy and Rudyric Dejos who were tortured and killed by the 39th Infantry Battalion in Sta.Cruz, Davao del Sur? How about the case of Rebelyn Pitao, a teacher and daughter of NPA Commander Leoncio “Ka Parago” Pitao? Was justice served to Celso Pojas, the farmer-leader in Davao City? Who killed the beloved priest of Arakan, Fr. Fausto Tentorio?

The military’s 10th Infantry Division, Eastern Mindanao Command and the Pres. Aquino, the commander-in-chief, have blood on their hands. This is their version of “peace and development”—to silence people’s dissent. Their peace is death to leaders of farmers, church people and civilians.

KARAPATAN Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights calls on the Aquino government to prosecute the perpetrators of these atrocities. We call on the government to pull-out all military troops and the so-called peace and development teams in the countryside.

Peace never comes from silencing dissent. Peace comes with social justice.

Hustisya alang kang Fr. Fausto Tentorio!
Hustisya alang sa tanang biktima sa Oplan Bayanihan!
Undangon ang Pasismo sa Estado!

FOR REFERENCE: Hanimay Suazo, Secretary General, KARAPATAN-SMR, 0929-401-4945

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PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
[email protected]
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Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights
2nd Flr. Erythrina Bldg., #1 Maaralin corner Matatag Sts., Central District
Diliman, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101
Telefax: (+63 2) 4354146
Web: http://www.karapatan.org

KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties.  It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign.

Justice for Fr. Fausto Tentorio! Justice for Ramon Batoy! Justice for All Victims of Human Rights Violations!

ICHRP Secretariat
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Justice for Fr. Fausto Tentorio! Justice for Ramon Batoy! Justice for All Victims of Human Rights Violations!

PRESS STATEMENT – The Justice for Melissa campaign expresses its deepest condolences to the families of Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tentorio and Ramon Batoy.  The Justice for Melissa campaign condemns the brutal extra-judicial killings of Italian missionary Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tentorio and farmer activist Ramon Batoy, two individuals that were defenders of the Arakan valley, the land and its people.

Fr. Tentorio, an Italian missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), was shot dead within the compound of the Mother of Perpetual Help Parish on October 17, 2011.  Fr. Pops, an anti-mining activist, was also a Board Member of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines Southern Mindanao and the Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Inc.  Fr. Tentorio answered the humble calling to live a simple life among the people, to serve the people, especially those in most need, the most oppressed. For more than 30 years, Fr. Pops devoted his life to the service of the indigenous “lumads” and peasants of the Southern Philippines.

Within the week of Fr. Pops’ slaying, farmer Ramon Batoy was extra-judicially killed inside his own home in Arakan.  According to the latest reports from the human rights organization, Karapatan, members of Batoy’s family and neighbors were illegally detained, tortured and harassed by the military. The government cover-up of the extra-judicial killing uses the storyline that Batoy and his neighbor were members of the New People’s Army.

“The brutal culture of impunity that reigns in the Philippines does not discriminate.  As an American that has survived enforced disappearance and torture in the Philippines, my heart goes out to the Tentorio and Batoy families and the communities they served.  The civilian death toll under the on-going counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bayanihan, continues to rise, and it is not just Filipino blood that has been shed.  The international community must respond to these latest human rights atrocities that have claimed the life of another Filipino citizen and an Italian priest,” said Melissa Roxas.  “The government’s on-going criminalization and extra-judicial killings of activists and advocates like Ramon Batoy and Fr. Pops must end.  We must continue to advocate internationally, from Geneva to the Vatican, so that peace with justice will one day prevail.”

The Justice for Melissa campaign joins the growing international clamor for justice.  We call for an immediate, comprehensive and fair investigation of these human rights violations.  We call on President Benigno Simeon Aquino III to address the following:

>The immediate formation of an independent fact-finding and investigation team composed of representatives from human rights groups, the Church, local government, and the Commission on Human Rights that will look into the incident in Sitio Upper Lumbo, Kabalantian village, Municipality of Arakan, North Cotabato, which led to the killing of Ramon Batoy, the arrest of Noli Badol and Celso Batoy, and the forcible evacuation of 48 households from their homes.
>The immediate release of Noli Badol and Celso Batoy from unjust detention.
>The military to stop the labeling and targeting of human rights defenders and innocent civilians as “members of front organizations of the communists” and “enemies of the state.”
>The Philippine Government to withdraw its counterinsurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, which victimizes innnocent and unarmed civilians.
>The Philippine Government to be reminded that it is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that it is also a party to all the major Human Rights instruments, thus it is bound to observe all of these instruments’ provisions.

End Impunity In the Philippines!

Contact: Rhonda Ramiro
Justice for Melissa Campaign
Email: [email protected]

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About the Justice for Melissa Campaign
The Justice for Melissa Roxas (J4MR) campaign is a broadly-carried initiative of organizations, churches, and individuals who support Melissa Roxas, a Filipina American poet, human rights activist and community health worker, who was abducted and tortured by elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on May 19, 2009 while conducting community health work in La Paz, Tarlac, Philippines.  She was held incommunicado and tortured for six days in a military camp, the first American victim of state-sponsored abduction and torture in the Philippines during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.  The J4MR campaign supports Melissa Roxas’ pursuit of justice and accountability and justice for all victims of state-sponsored human rights violations in the Philippines. Community members can take action to support the J4MR campaign by signing the online pledge at http://justiceformelissa.org.

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