HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Mindanao Nuns Condemn Cops’ Raid of Convents, ‘Attack’ on Church People

A Mindanao-based group of nuns has condemned the Oct. 31 Philippine National Police (PNP) raids and searches of the convents of the Contemplatives Good Shepherd (CGS) and the Missionary Sisters of Mary (MSM) in Butuan City as  an “attack on the church and the people.”

BY BULATLAT

A Mindanao-based group of nuns has condemned the Oct. 31 Philippine National Police (PNP) raids and searches of the convents of the Contemplatives Good Shepherd (CGS) and the Missionary Sisters of Mary (MSM) in Butuan City, Agusan del Norte. In a Nov. 4 statement, the Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN) also denounced what it described as “the government’s attack on the church and the people.”

Seven armed policemen barged into the CGS convent in Ampayon and later went to the MSM Central House in Baan and the San Lorenzo Pastoral Center. They said they were looking for Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos, spokesman of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in Mindanao.

“In the CGS convent, the police withheld their identities and refused to respond to the sisters' inquiries, barging into the cloister and in the other areas of the convent,” the SAMIN statement read.

“It was only after their search went futile (that) PNP Col. Wilfredo Reyes, who (was) not so sure of their information, identified himself to the sisters and showed a warrant of arrest (for) Madlos, whom Reyes claimed to be hiding in a convent,” the SAMIN statement further read.

Reyes and his men then went to the MSM Central House and the San Lorenzo Pastoral Center. They were, however, refused entry into both convents.

“The PNP is quick to claim the incident as a mistake on their part,” SAMIN stated. “But we refute this statement.”

“We see this raid as a continuing pattern of persecution on church people perpetrated by this government's all-out war campaign,” SAMIN further stated. “This shows how in the name of the all-out war, even members of the church are not spared (from) the brutish force of the government. That the police violated the sanctity of the convent and the right and privacy of the sisters shows such brazenness.”

SAMIN cited the raid of the MSM convent in Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte in 2004, the rebellion charge against Sr. Mary Dumaog, RGS (Religious of the Good Shepherd), and the killing of RGS lay worker and indigenous people’s rights advocate Mateo Morales in San Luis, Agusan del Sur on Jan. 24, 2006 as instances of what it described as the government’s persecution of church people.

“(These show) that church people, who courageously embrace their prophetic calling amidst (today’s challenges to) fidelity to the Gospel and in living out of one’s identity, committed to serve the suffering Filipinos and dare to expose the ills of Philippine society, prophetically uphold human dignity and stand on the side of life, and peace based on justice, face the threat of being called (enemies) of the state,” the SAMIN statement further read. Bulatlat

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