Human Rights Martyrs of the Word

On Human Rights Day, church organizations and activists honored Christian martyrs – bishops, priests, nuns and lay workers – who died while fulfilling their mission. “The names of our Church martyrs,” one of the speakers said, “are engraved in our hearts for they showed us the way of being true Christians.”

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

By tradition men and women of the cloth, together with lay church workers, are treated with considerable deference by the community, owing to their status as active propagators of the Word. However, the military has not been known to exercise such deference for church workers. In fact nuns, priests, and lay church people have been among the countless victims of human rights violations by men in uniform in the Philippines. Religious workers have often been killed, abused, or harassed in the course of active service to the masses.

Church people honor religious human rights martyrs in a gathering at the St. Anthony Shrine in Manila, Dec. 10  Photo by Arkibong Bayan

Fr. Tullio Favali and the Manero brothers

Fr. Tullio Favali was parish priest of Tulunan, North Cotabato. Together with Fr. Peter Geremia, he was a
missionary working with the impoverished communities of the said province.

On April 4, 1985, a group belonging to the paramilitary Civilian Home Defense Forces (CHDF), led by brothers Norberto, Edilberto, and Elpidio Manero, went to Fr. Favali and hurled insults and threats. This led to a verbal tussle which ended in gunshots to Fr. Favali’s head. The Manero brothers later ate the fallen priest’s brains.

The Manero brothers were charged criminally and found guilty. They were detained for several years.

In December 1999, then President Joseph Estrada pardoned Norberto Manero, paving the way for his
release. Edilberto and Elpidio were scheduled for pardon in February of the following year.

Early in 2001, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, newly installed into power through a people-power
uprising, cancelled a commitment to attend a conference organized by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines on the peace negotiations, and instead spent that day meeting with Norberto Manero in Malacañang.

Puri Pedro

Purificacion Pedro, known as Puri to her friends, took up a degree in social work at the University of the
Philippines in 1969. She was among the topnotchers in the National Board Examination for Accreditation of Social Workers. For the next four years, she served as a devoted social worker of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Quezon City.

Later she moved on to the slums of Tondo and the indigenous communities of Bontoc, Mountain Province.

She was subsequently offered work at the Luzon Secretariat for Social Action.

Before taking on the work, however, she first visited a rural community in Bataan at the invitation of a
friend who had joined the armed revolutionary movement in the said province. On Jan. 18, 1977, while she was there, the military conducted an assault on the community and she was wounded in the shoulder. Soldiers took her to the Bataan Provincial Hospital.

The wounded Puri was interrogated for days by intelligence men with one of them even dipping his finger into her shoulder wound to force her to give information. A few days later, four intelligence agents entered her hospital room. Her sister Carmen, who had arrived at the hospital protested, but was threatened with harm if she did not leave the room. Carmen finally obliged.

An hour later, the agents left. Carmen rushed into the room and found Puri in the bathroom, with a wire wound around her neck and tied to the towel rack.

Other martyrs

His passion for social justice and his concern for the plight of the poor led Fr. Nilo Valerio to join the armed revolutionary movement in the martial law years.

On Aug. 24, 1985, Fr. Valerio and two other companions were surrounded by elements of the 190th
Infantry Brigade in the boundary of La Union and Benguet. They were beheaded. Their bodies have not been found until today.

Santiago Arce, a schoolteacher and bandmaster, was also a lay leader involved in a peasant organization
in Abra in the early 1970s. On Sept. 4, 1974, while in the custody of the military, he was killed.

Fr. Narciso Pico was active in several human rights organizations and was also an active advocate of land reform. In January 1991, he was shot dead by two elements of the paramilitary Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu).

Fr. Neri Satur of Bukidnon earned the ire of Cafgu elements for his involvement in protests against illegal logging. He had reportedly been confiscating logs from suspected illegal loggers.

In October 1991, Fr. Satur was shot to death.

Gathering

The Fr. Favali, Puri and the others are among the religious human rights martyrs honored last Dec. 10, the 55th International Human Rights Day, at the St. Anthony Shrine in Sampaloc, Manila. The gathering was organized by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, United Methodist Church-Manila Episcopal Area, Iglesia Filipina Independiente - Peacemakers Sisters of the Good Shepherd -W-JPIC, Promotion of Church People’s Response, Task Force Urban Conscientization (TFUC-AMRSP), Kairos-Philippines, Kapatirang Simbahan para sa Bayan, Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum and the Institute of Religion and Culture.

Also honored were three prominent religious human rights advocates who passed away this year: Bp. Antonio Fortich of the Diocese of Bacolod, Bp. La Verne Diwa Mercado of the United Methodist Church, and Sr. Christine Tan of the Religious of the Good Shepherd.

Bishops Fortich and Mercado were themselves human rights victims during the Marcos dictatorship. Fortich received several threats against his life from the military, while Mercado was imprisoned. Like Sr. Tan, they were actively involved in advocacy of human rights and social justice.

“The names of our Church martyrs are engraved in our hearts for they showed us the way of being true
Christians –Bishop Robert Lee Longid, Bishop Delfin Callao, Bishop Nelinda Briones, Fr. Neri Satur, Fr.
Zacarias Agatep, Fr. Narciso Pico, Fr. Frank Navarro, Rev. Rudy Asis, Bro. Carlos Tayag, Sr. Asuncion
Martinez, ICM, the Cassandra Martyrs and many more who passed away but whose passion to uplift the poor and oppressed continue to live through us,” Fr. Charly Ricafort, OSC said. Bulatlat.com

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