Security beefed up for Independence Day celebrations

By Thea Alberto
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 04:30pm (Mla time) 06/11/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Some 3,000 police will be deployed in key areas in Metro Manila as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo leads Tuesday the 109th Independence Day celebrations, officials said Monday.

 

The alert status will remain normal even as leftwing groups are expected to hold street protests, said Police Director Wilfredo Garcia, Chief of the Directorate for Operations.

 

“There’s no security threat. So we’ll just have a normal alert status,” he said in a phone interview.

 

But more than 1,000 anti-riot police are ready for deployment in areas where militant protests are traditionally held.

 

Arroyo, members of her Cabinet, and foreign diplomats and dignitaries will attend the flag raising and wreath-laying ceremonies at Rizal Park Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the following roads will be closed to traffic Tuesday:

 

• North and Southbound lane of Roxas Boulevard from Anda Circle to Pres. Quirino
• P. Burgos from Roxas Boulevard to Ma. Orosa east and west bound
• TM Kalaw from Roxas Blvd to MH Del Pilar east and west bound
• Katigbak Drive
• South Drive
• Independence Road; P. Burgos service road corner Lagusnilad
• Ayala corner Finance.

CARP farmers’ ‘death warrant,’ says KMP

By Tonette Orejas
Central Luzon Desk
Last updated 01:29am (Mla time) 06/12/2007

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Since the Mendiola massacre to the abduction of agriculturist Jonas Burgos, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has worked as a “death warrant” to many farmers struggling to own lands in the last 19 years, and deserves no more extension, a leader of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas said.

 

KMP Secretary-General Danilo Ramos said that if given a few more years to meet the balance of 772,000 hectares, the program would lead to an intensification of killings and abductions of farmers.

 

Endless killings

 

“Its many loopholes have become the convenient cover for landlords to maintain their vast land holdings and even to expand them further,” Ramos said in a statement here on Monday. “Since CARP’s inception hundreds of farmers have been killed struggling for genuine land reform.”

 

He said that since the massacre of 13 farmers and the wounding of more than 70 others on Mendiola Bridge (now Chino Roces Bridge) in Manila on Jan. 22, 1987, or a year before the CARP was enacted into law, many farmers involved in land disputes have been killed.

 

Some of these, he said, are in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, Hacienda Velez-Malaga in Negros Occidental and Hacienda Looc in Batangas.

 

“In fact, the abductions of Jonas Burgos, Sherilyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño (in Bulacan) were the result of their advocacy for the free distribution of land to the tiller and their consequent stand against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo…,” he said.

 

Extrajudicial killings have totaled more than 800 since 2001, according to human rights watchdogs. Many of the victims were farmers.

 

Ramos cited case studies on how landlords have derailed the implementation of CARP.

 

Farmers’ land

 

In Occidental Mindoro, landowner Ricardo Quintos filed murder charges against Rep. Jose Villarosa and six farmers, who have been called the “Mamburao 6” who allegedly killed his sons, Michael and Paul Quintos.

 

Ramos said Quintos made up the charges to force farmers out of his 604-hectare estate in Tayamaan, Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro.

 

The land, mortgaged by Quintos, had been recovered by the Asset Privatization Trust for distribution through the CARP during the Aquino administration.

 

Exempted from the program coverage in 1992, the land, according to a Department of Agrarian Reform ruling in 1997, belonged to the farmers.

 

In Silang, Cavite, the fourth generation of farmers in Barangays Tartaria and Lumil have been seeking portions in the estate owned by the late President Emilio Aguinaldo, Ramos said. Policemen, he said, were used to harass the farmers and their leaders.

 

Ramos said the program was comprehensive when it came to exemptions. Although the CARP law, Republic Act 6657, and its Section 10 ensure that farm workers are qualified to own land, members of the Bukidnon Free Farmers Agricultural Laborer Organization (Buffalo) tilling lands inside the Central Mindanao University have yet to benefit from such provision.

 

The DAR adjudication board has favored the Buffalo but it has reduced the scope of the land to 400 hectares. Two farmers were shot when they prevented CMU guards from destroying their crops in 1992. Ramos said the Supreme Court later decided to disqualify the farmers as CARP beneficiaries.

 

“If the government itself could not give lands that it owns like those at the CMU because of its thwarted interpretation of Section 10, can farmers still expect the government to put an end to the concentration of lands in the hands of private owners?” Ramos asked.

 

Subservience

 

According to him, several cases had shown that the DAR was “subservient” to the clamor of landowners to convert the use of lands from agricultural to residential, commercial or industrial.

 

“Land-use conversion is another form of taking away lands from farmers,” he said, adding that Section 65 of RA 6657 allows this.

 

Farmers in Hacienda Looc were in this predicament, still asserting their right to own or till 8,650 hectares, he said. Seven farmers were killed as they insisted on their right to stay, he said.

Sugar lands part of CARP, SC rules

By Carla Gomez
Visayas Bureau
Last updated 01:21am (Mla time) 06/12/2007

BACOLOD CITY—The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition questioning the manner in which land reform is being implemented in sugarcane lands for lack of merit.

 

The petitioners include the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association Inc., National Federation of Sugarcane Planters Inc., United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc., Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers Inc., First Farmers Holding Corp., National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines and the League of Municipalities of the Philippines-Negros Occidental Chapter.

 

The SC also ruled that the inclusion of sugar lands in the coverage of RA 6657 in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law delves into the wisdom of an act of Congress, beyond the ambit of judicial review, in its decision promulgated March 30 and posted in its website yesterday.

 

The petition for prohibition and mandamus with prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order named as respondents the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the Land Registration Authority (LRA).

 

The petitioners asked the SC to enjoin the DAR, LBP and the LRA from subjecting their sugarcane farms to eminent domain or compulsory acquisition without filing the necessary expropriation proceedings pursuant to the provisions of Rule 67 of the Rules of Court and without the application or conformity of a majority of the regular farm workers.

 

The petitioners also asked the High Court to nullify paragraphs (d), (e) and (f) of Section 16[1][5] of Republic Act No. (RA) 6657, for being unconstitutional.
The Land Bank, however, urged the SC to dismiss the petition since it has already upheld the constitutionality of RA 6657 in its ruling on the Association of Small Landowners case.

 

The LBP said that the petitioners want to delay the acquisition of lands covered by RA 6657 by insisting that the titles to land should remain with the landowners until the issue of just compensation is finally adjudicated by the courts.

 

On the petitioners’ argument that it may have been “unwise” and “impractical” for Congress to include sugar lands in the coverage of RA 6657 as it is more efficiently and more economically produced by organized, mechanized, plantation-type agriculture than by small, “parcelized,” owner-cultivated farms, the LBP said the wisdom of acquiring sugar lands for agrarian reform is beyond the ambit of judicial review.

 

Without any amendment to RA 6657 regarding coverage, there could be no basis to prohibit the DAR and the Land Bank from acquiring sugar lands, for purposes of agrarian reform, it added.

 

In the case filed by the Association of Small Landowners, the Supreme Court had upheld the validity of Section 16 of RA 6657, including paragraphs (d), (e) and (f), which set forth the manner of acquisition of private agricultural lands and determination of just compensation, the LBP pointed out.

 

The SC said sugar planters failed to show that they belong to a different class and are entitled to a different treatment.

 

Indeed, it is not within the power of the Court to pass upon or look into the wisdom of the inclusion by Congress of the sugar lands in the coverage of RA 6657, it ruled.

 

The petitioners alleged that the DAR, without consulting the regular farm workers on whether or not they want to exercise their right to own the land they till, indiscriminately sends notices of coverage and acquisition to practically all the planters and leaves the matter of identifying and convincing the prospective beneficiaries later.

 

The petitioners alleged that, in actual practice, DAR, in collusion with some NGOs and other “instant” farmer organizations, designated as “beneficiaries” nontillers, nonregular farmers, and outsiders of the land and other unqualified groups to eject and replace the regular farm workers and later on install these beneficiaries on the sugar lands, with the assistance of the AFP or the PNP.

 

The petitioners also claimed that the LRA canceled the Certificates of Title of the landowners merely upon the directive or request by the DAR, without asking the landowner to surrender his owner’s duplicate of title or even notifying him.

 

But the SC ruled that the petitioners’ allegations remained as such—mere allegations, unsupported by any evidence to prove their veracity or truthfulness.

Igorots pay tribute to Ibaloi revolutionary heroes

By Vincent Cabreza
Northern Luzon Bureau
Last updated 10:38pm (Mla time) 06/11/2007

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — You won’t find the Philippine flag laid out on the tombstones of Ibaloi revolutionary heroes Mateo “Kustacio” Carantes and Mateo Cariño on Tuesday, Independence Day.

 

This omission was not made out of spite.

 

Few in this generation recall the names of their former presidents, much less obscure members of the Katipunan in Igorot country, who helped General Emilio Aguinaldo escape from the Americans when the Philippine-American war broke out in 1899.

 

Ignorance, however, is no longer an excuse, at least for a group of young Igorot professionals who have started filming the legacy of their region’s cultural and historical heroes.

 

Dr. Ryan Guinaran and Betty Lestino have formed ResearchMate Inc. to draw factual accounts of Igorot heroism for this generation of Cordillerans.

 

ResearchMate has completed filming a reenactment of the liberation of Baguio and Benguet, using amateur actors, aged between 12 and 30 years old.

 

The film focuses on war veterans from Ibaloi, Kankaney, and Mt. Province groups who stayed here to fight in spite of the fact that the Imperial Japanese Army had converted Camp John Hay into its Philippine headquarters during World War II.

 

Many of the actors are great, great grandchildren of these veterans, who were teenagers when they fought the Japanese.

 

Sections of the film are posted on YouTube on the web or are promoted enthusiastically by Cordilleran bloggers to overseas Igorots.

 

Guinaran said he hoped to get the films distributed in schools, or even through the pirated DVD network to win a wider audience.

 

He may follow the marketing strategy used by Raymund Red who toured the independently produced movie, “Sakay,” around the country alongside his actors.

 

Heroism is an oft-quoted value that has lost its meaning to present generations, according to Listino, a former researcher of the Philippine Rice Institute.

 

She said this has been working against the case for Igorot heroes, who were too far off the fringe of mainstream society to even win official recognition.

 

The heirs of Carantes said it took Ibaloi families years of painstaking research to even get the National Historical Institute to acknowledge their great grandparents as legitimate Katipuneros.

 

Carantes was a community leader who coordinated the Katipunan activities in the Cordillera during the 1896 Revolution.

 

Notes compiled by the late Ibaloi historian Geoffrey Carantes indicated that Mateo Carantes may have helped hide Aguinaldo as he made his way through the Cordilleras to escape American troops.

 

Members of the Cariño clan have obtained the most-detailed archival records about their great grandfather from the United States.

 

Aside from Cariño’s revolutionary links, he was also credited with winning a landmark US Supreme Court case that recognized his right over lands that became Camp John Hay.

 

The US military converted Cariño’s pastureland into a garrison. The Ibaloi protested America’s actions in a series of cases that culminated in 1909, the same year the summer capital was officially chartered.

On Independence Day, Kenney says RP ‘a special place’

By Michael Lim Ubac
Inquirer
Last updated 05:26am (Mla time) 06/12/2007

MANILA, Philippines — On the eve of the 109th commemoration of Philippine independence from colonial rule, the United States ambassador said the country remained “very free.”

 

“Happy independence,” Ambassador Kristie Kenney said.

 

“This is a great country filled with wonderful people. We’re proud to celebrate independence amongst all of you. It’s clear, to all of us, (this is) a very special moment,” she said, adding that she “feels at home here.”

 

Kenney said the country was on the correct path having chosen a democratic setup.

 

“Now, we can all agree that sometimes democracy is not pretty, [but] it sure beats the heck out of the alternative,” she told reporters at Malacañang after the rites honoring slain US Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell.

 

“I have a great picture in my office … the Philippine flag going up and the American flag coming down. I think it’s a great symbol of the wonderful friendship we’ve always had,” Kenney said.

 

The picture she was referring to was of the July 4, 1946 rites when the US formally gave the Philippines back its freedom.

 

This took place at the Luneta in Manila. The Stars and Stripes was lowered as the Philippine flag was raised in its place.

 

On Aug. 4, 1964, President Diosdado Macapagal, Ms Arroyo’s father, changed the date of Philippine independence to June 12, 1898, the date Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed freedom from Spain in Kawit, Cavite.

 

Kenney enumerated the things Filipinos should be grateful for:

 

“Filipinos are known throughout the world for their hospitality, their innovations, their services, their climbing Mount Everest, their cooking in the White House, their winning boxing matches, their hosting important international summits.

“And if I can say on a personal note, I thank all of you. I feel at home here. I consider this my home now. And I know my colleagues would feel the same. That’s never been the case in other countries — a special place,” she said.

More tutors fear for lives after whistle-blower’s slay

By Charlie Sease
Mindanao Bureau
Last updated 04:59am (Mla time) 06/12/2007
COTABATO CITY — Teachers in Pagalungan town now fear for their lives following the killing of a school supervisor who exposed alleged election irregularities in the municipality of Maguindanao province.

“Some of them are hesitant to continue the fight, but we assured them of our unwavering support,” said Pagalungan Vice Mayor Norodin Matalam, a former governor of Maguindanao.

Matalam said the teachers expressed their fears during the funeral of Musa Dimasidsing, Maguindanao schools district supervisor, who was shot dead Saturday night in Pikit town, North Cotabato province.

Matalam has sought the help of the police and military in securing the safety of teachers and other whistle-blowers.

Dimasidsing, 60, sustained two gunshot wounds in the head and body, but police claimed to have recovered three empty shells from a .45-cal. pistol.

Dimasidsing was a transient resident of Pikit following threats on his life that forced him to move from nearby Pagalungan in Maguindanao. He had exposed the alleged fraudulent mayoral race in his hometown where the prominent Montawal and Matalam political clans were at loggerheads.

Matalam, an opposition mayoral bet, had accused his rival, Uto Montawal, who was with the administration, of manipulating the election and intimidating voters. Montawal was proclaimed the winner by the municipal board of canvassers although 36 ballot boxes containing election returns from seven villages had yet to be canvassed.

About 7,000 votes from Pagalungan, which has more than 10,000 registered voters, had yet to be canvassed. Nevertheless, its election officer Elisa Gasmin, who remained missing, officially declared Montawal the winner.

The Philippine National Police has ordered Maguindanao police to immediately arrest suspects.

“We should not allow the killings to go on. The suspects should be arrested,” PNP chief Director General Oscar Calderon told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday in a phone interview.

Calderon said he directed the commander of Region XII, Chief Supt. Felizardo Serapio, to submit an investigation report on the incident to Camp Crame national police headquarters.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Elections has condemned the murder of Dimasidsing and has assured poll fraud witnesses that they would be provided security.

At a press briefing on Monday, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said that whatever Task Force Maguindanao would uncover would be “partly due to Dimasidsing’s courage.”

Jimenez said Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, who heads the task force, assured poll fraud witnesses that they would be given protection.

Lawyer Carlos Medina of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente) said the Comelec should brace itself for the refusal of teachers to assume the now dangerous role of election officer in case a special election is called in Maguindanao.

Henrietta de Villa, chair of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, said Dimasidsing’s murder presented other problems.

“There is the fear factor in place right now,” she said. “But fear is already a given reality in the [Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao]. This means we will have to work doubly hard in mobilizing volunteers. It would be harder to regroup at this point.”

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cotabato, which has jurisdiction over Maguindanao, has also condemned the Dimasidsing slay.

“We are shocked and we can’t help but jump to the conclusion [that his death may be election-related],” said Jose Bagaforo, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Cotabato, in an interview over church-owned station Radio Veritas.

US spy plane, Navy join search for priest

By Julie Alipala, Christine Avendaño
Inquirer
Last updated 03:13am (Mla time) 06/12/2007

MANILA, Philippines — A US spy plane scoured the seas and the Philippine Navy conducted a blockade as police and troops fanned out in the Zamboanga Peninsula in search of an Italian priest who was kidnapped Sunday.

 

Police said a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was behind the abduction of Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, 57, in Payao town in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

 

But an MILF official said the Abu Sayyaf bandit group was behind the abduction.

 

Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF chief negotiator, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Abdusalam Akiddin, alias Commander Kiddie, the alleged leader of the armed men who snatched the priest, was a member of the Abu Sayyaf.

 

“If the captors’ leader is Kiddie, definitely it’s the work of the Abu Sayyaf. Kiddie had long joined the Abu Sayyaf organization,” Iqbal said in a phone interview.

 

The MILF is engaged in peace negotiations with the government.

 

Iqbal said his counterpart in the negotiations had asked him about Commander Kiddie.

 

“I told them that Kiddie was a member of the Abu Sayyaf and had been linked to previous kidnappings in the Zamboanga Peninsula,” the MILF official said.

 

Bossi, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (Pime), was abducted in Barangay Silal in Payao while on his way to Barangay Bulawan where he was to say Mass.

 

Payao Mayor Joefer Mendoza said Bossi was on his motorbike after saying Mass at the Saint Paul Parish Church in Silal when he was abducted.

 

Still in Silal, a habal-habal (motorcycle) driver identified only as Taboy, who escorted Bossi to Bulawan, saw a length of rope across the road.

 

Mendoza said Taboy alighted from his motorcycle to untie the rope when armed men suddenly appeared.

 

The mayor said the abductors also took Taboy but later released him. “We learned about the kidnapping when Taboy was released,” he said.

 

Bottled water, canned goods

 

Police recovered food items, bottled water, canned goods and the rope from the place where Bossi was abducted.

 

“It indicates that the kidnappers were staking out the priest,” Mendoza said in a phone interview.

 

Bossi, from Italy’s Abbiategrasso region, was forced to board a motorboat, officials said.

 

Soon after the incident, reports spread all over Payao about the kidnapping. Mendoza said residents got angry and demanded that authorities immediately work for the safe release of their priest.

 

No group has claimed responsibility for Bossi’s kidnapping but the military accused Moro militants of abducting the missionary.

 

“The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police are exerting efforts to conduct rescue operations,” the military information chief, Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, told reporters.

 

The military has sent the Army’s 102nd Infantry Brigade to help in the rescue operations.

 

The troops were headed toward Tungawan to follow up initial reports that Bossi and his abductors were seen boarding two pump boats and moving toward the town, Baccaro said.

 

US forces providing counterterrorism training to Filipino soldiers deployed a P3 Orion spy plane to scour the seas because of the possibility that Bossi might have been taken to Jolo town in Sulu province, a lair of al-Qaeda-linked militants, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said.

 

“We ordered the AFP to do everything to recover the priest,” Ermita said.

 

The MILF received information that Bossi was brought to an island between Zamboanga and Basilan, according to Iqbal.

 

Marine Maj. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, commander of the government’s Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG), said Bossi’s captors were members of an MILF lost command. The AHJAG, which has government and MILF panels, is one of the three groups that were formed to implement the ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

 

Dolorfino said another MILF commander was linked to the abduction. “He is Jack. Right now, our troops in the area believe that the captors belong to an MILF lost command,” he said.

 

He said the AHJAG was looking at the group of Waning Abdusalam and Musa Mumin as the one responsible for Bossi’s abduction. The men belonged to an armed lawless group, he said.

 

The MILF has denied that its men were involved in the kidnapping and has offered to help authorities obtain the release of the Italian priest.

 

Sultan Naga Dimaporo

 

“Our effort is concentrated in Sultan Naga Dimaporo town in Lanao del Norte where the Italian priest was brought by his captors. We are determining the exact location so we can contain it,” Dolorfino said.

 

He later gave another location as the military and police coordinated with the MILF in the rescue operations.

 

Dolorfino said the government and MILF forces were zeroing in on a municipality in Zamboanga Sibugay where Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), the MILF’s armed forces, were being sent.

 

He said that once it was confirmed that Bossi and his abductors were indeed in this municipality, which he did not disclose, BIAF members would be instructed to prevent the abductors from leaving the area.

 

“This was in order to make them have fewer options and make them vulnerable to negotiations,” he said of Bossis abductors.

 

He said the AHJAG was adopting the strategy it used when it rescued a German and his Filipino wife and two other Filipinos who were abducted by an armed group in Cotabato early this month.

 

The BIAF was able to corner the kidnappers in a marshland in Cotabato, forcing them to release the hostages.

 

Helicopter, gunboats

 

A Navy helicopter and three gunboats have been sent to the peninsula, said Commodore Emilio Marayag, commander of the Naval Forces Western Mindanao.

 

“Time element is very important. We received the report after lunch (Sunday). Until now we don’t have any sightings or leads. If the report came early, we could have spotted the pump boats,” Marayag said Monday.

 

But Brig. Gen. Edgardo Gurrea said he was confident the MILF would be of big help.

 

The MILF has a good record when it comes to negotiating the immediate release of kidnap victims, Gurrea said.

 

“We have big hopes that the MILF will help because this is not the first time it helped the government,” Gurrea said.

 

MILF spokesperson Eid Kabalu said the government’s “high hopes” would be “a big challenge for all of us.”

 

Director General Oscar Calderon of the Philippine National Police said the police and military were focusing on the coastal areas of Naga and Tungawan.

 

“We are chasing them (Bossi’s abductors),” Calderon said. With reports from Alcuin Papa and Michael Lim Ubac

CBCP: Let’s honor poll heroes, too

By Jerome Aning
Inquirer
Last updated 05:48am (Mla time) 06/12/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Honor the unsung heroes — the teachers and poll watchdog volunteers who served in the recent midterm elections, as well as the victims of extrajudicial killings and involuntary disappearances.

 

This was the Independence Day message of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo. Aside from honoring the heroes who helped the country attain nationhood 109 years ago, he urged Filipinos to remember the ordinary heroes.

 

“In the attempt to showcase some great, mighty and popular personalities as icons of the bayani (hero), let us not lose sight of the innumerable and unnamed bayani of our country’s history,” Lagdameo said Monday in a statement reflecting on the theme of Tuesday’s Independence Day celebration: “Kalayaan 2007: Bayan, Bayani, Bayanihan.”

 

The prelate cited the volunteers of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections and the public school teachers “who, despite odds, difficulties, obstacles, frustrations and threats, defended the sacredness of the ballot against those desecrating groups.”

 

Lagdameo added: “In the midst of rampant and wholesale ‘buy and sale’ of votes, there were still those who refused to be controlled by the dictatorship of money. Their small stories are worth noting down on Independence Day.”

 

A teacher, Nellie Banaag, and a poll watcher, Leticia Ramos, died in a fire on May 15 after five armed men torched a school in Taysan, Batangas, during the counting of votes.

 

Another teacher, school district supervisor Musa Dimasidsing who exposed cheating in the Maguindanao provincial elections, was shot dead on Saturday.

 

Lagdameo said in his message that the extrajudicial killings, involuntary disappearances, and cases of graft and corruption should be a reminder to everyone “that while we have been liberated from the control of foreign invaders, we are victims of the abuses and exploitation of fellow Filipinos.”

 

He added: “There is so much demand for restitution for helpless and voiceless victims. May we not consider the uncompensated victims also bayani ng bayan (nation’s heroes), especially since their appeals are apparently falling on deaf ears?”

 

The Catholic Church in the Philippines has joined the clamor for “the restoration or return of the victims of disappearances,” the archbishop said in his message.

 

“Our prayer is that they will be allowed to return safe and sound to their grieving and anxious families, to enjoy basic freedom.”

Pope appeals to kidnappers to free hostages

Agence France-Presse
Last updated 06:07am (Mla time) 06/12/2007

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI made a heartfelt appeal Sunday to kidnappers around the world to release their hostages, several hours after an Italian priest was abducted by suspected Islamic militants in the Philippines.

 

Despite the timing of his appeal, Benedict made no specific mention of the seizure Sunday morning of Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi in the strife-torn southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

 

Bossi, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (Pime), was on his way to Barangay Bulawan in Payao town in Zamboanga Sibugay province to say Mass when he was kidnapped by at least 10 armed men believed by police to be members of a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

 

The pontiff roundly condemned kidnappings as “despicable acts” during his weekly Sunday Angelus blessing in St Peter’s Square.

 

“Unfortunately, I am frequently requested to intercede for people, among them Catholic priests, held captive for various reasons in various parts of the world,” Benedict told thousands of pilgrims in the Vatican square.

 

“I hold each of them in my heart and in my prayers, thinking, among other cases, of the painful situation in Colombia.

 

“I appeal to the authors of these despicable acts, so that they be aware of the evil they do, and return their captives to their families,” the pontiff said.

 

Kidnappings are on the rise in Colombia, a long-time hotspot of abductions, rising 58 percent between January and May 2007 in comparison to the same period last year, peace foundation Pais Libre announced in Bogota last month.

 

The pope had previously condemned kidnappings in October last year, at the time drawing attention to the case of a young teacher abducted on the Italian island of Sardinia, who was released in May after eight months in detention.

With INQUIRER.net report

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