Suspect held as thousands bury slain priest

FALLEN SHEPHERD Cabanatuan Bishop Sofronio Bancud, surrounded by clergymen, sprinkle holy water on the casket of Fr. Richmond Nilo during a funeral Mass on Friday for the 44-year-old priest who was gunned down last Sunday inside a chapel in Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija. 

The Philippine National Police on Friday said one suspect has been arrested in the killing of Fr. Richmond Nilo whose brutal murder last Sunday triggered an outcry against the increasingly hostile environment for men of the cloth.

Chief Supt. Amador Corpus, Central Luzon regional police director, said Adell Roll Milan, who is also a suspected hired gun, was arrested at Barangay Malapit, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija province, on Thursday, a day before Nilo was buried in Cabanatuan City.

A witness identified him as one of the men who shot the 44-year-old priest through a window of the Nuestra Señora de la Nieve Chapel in Zaragoza town,  as he prepared to celebrate Mass.

About 15,000 people in black attire or wearing black armbands joined Friday’s funeral march for Nilo.

“Priests have been attacked in the history of Christianity but it will never stop clergymen from proclaiming the Gospel,” said Cabanatuan Bishop Sofronio Bancud, who led the funeral Mass attended by the papal nuncio, Italian Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia.

Solidarity

Fr. Antonio Mangahas of General Tinio town in Nueva Ecija said everyone was grief-stricken over Nilo’s killing but “no one talked about vengeance.”

“The killers wanted to silence Fr. Richmond but all it did was make his voice louder,” he said.

In Isabela province, churches in 34 towns and three cities simultaneously rang their bells at noon on Friday to express sympathy for Nilo and solidarity with the Diocese of Cabanatuan, according to Fr. Gregorio Marvic Uanan, parish priest of the Our Lady of Visitation of Guibang in Gamu town.

Nilo was the third priest to be killed in just six months. Fr. Mark Ventura, 37, was shot dead after saying Mass in Gattaran town, Cagayan province, on April 29. Fr. Marcelito Paez, 72, was ambushed by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Jaen town, Nueva Ecija, on Dec. 5, 2017.

Corpus said Milan was one of six suspects in Nilo’s “senseless killing.”

He added that the police have identified the original owner of the Nissan car that had tailed Nilo before his murder but were still checking to determine its current owner.

The PNP has said it is looking into three possible motives for the killing: a land dispute, Nilo’s support for rape victims and his reputation as a staunch critic of Iglesia ni Cristo.

Thousands of mourners in black attire or wearing black armbands joined the funeral march in Cabanatuan City. —PHOTOS BY ARMAND GALANG

‘Verbal persecution’

Milan refused to talk about the killing, said Senior Supt. Eliseo Tanding, Nueva Ecija police director. “All he was willing to offer were basic information about himself,” Tanding said.

Sources privy to the investigation said the police were examining messages in Nilo’s cell phone. He had been receiving death threats but it was not clear if these were related to his support for farmers in the land dispute or the rape victims.

A group of 12 clergymen, led by Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, condemned Nilo’s killing in a statement, saying President Duterte’s “verbal persecution” of priests and bishops may have “emboldened” the assassins.

‘Blasphemous attack’

Mr. Duterte has publicly criticized the Catholic Church for opposing his bloody war on drugs, repeatedly calling priests hypocrites and corrupt for supposedly seeking favors from politicians.

Fr. Robert Reyes, spokesperson for Gomburza, a group of activist priests, nuns, brothers and laity, said Mr. Duterte’s recent “blasphemous attack” on the church, Nilo’s murder and the consistent “slander” against Catholic Church leaders would ultimately lead to a “war on the Catholic Church.”

But Reyes said they will not “withdraw into cowardly silence.”

Reyes also criticized most Catholic Church leaders and clergy for not speaking out, saying their silence “will not stop but will, in fact, encourage the killings of both ordinary citizens and now priests.” —WITH REPORTS FROM ARMAND GALANG, DELFIN T. MALLARI JR., GABRIEL CARDINOZA AND VILLAMOR VISAYA