FREEPORT – Was the killing of Fr. Mark Ventura in Gattaran, Cagayan the other day yet “another attack on church people who embrace the church doctrine to help and serve the people”?
Anakpawis Party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao yesterday condemned the brutal killing of Ventura who, he noted, had been active in anti-mining campaign and involved in indigenous people issues in Cagayan. Ventura was also head of the migrants’ desk of his archdiocese, he noted.
“The killing of Fr. Mark was an attack against church people who embrace the basic church doctrine which is to help and serve the people. Last December 2017, Nueva Ecija Catholic priest Fr. Tito Paez was also gunned down, he was also a human rights and peasant advocate,” Casilao said.
In a statement, he said that “church peoples who have been at the forefront of championing the welfare of the poor and marginalized are being targeted by those who want them to stop their advocacies. The cases of Fr. Tito and Fr. Mark are no diff erent from the persecution by the Duterte government of Australian nun, human rights and peasant advocate, Sr. Pat Fox, who now faces deportation on false charges that criminalize the acts of helping the poor.”
“Anakpawis extends its condolences to the family, friends, parishioners and the people of Gattaran, Cagayan whom Fr. Mark Ventura had served for the past seven years. We are one with the migrants, his parishioners and the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in calling for justice for his death. We also urge the Duterte government to use everything in its disposal to go after the killers. We hope that his murder will not be just another item in the long statistics of extra-judicial killings in this country,” he also said.
