Group denounces tagging of nun as rebel

PROTESTERSister Susan Bolanio at a rally in General Santos City. BONG S. SARMIENTO

GENERAL SANTOS CITY — A congregation of nuns expressed outrage on Sunday over the tagging of one of its members as a communist rebel by a suspicious website that is being linked to the military.

Sister Erlinda Hisug, superior general of Oblates of Notre Dame (OND), said Sister Susan Bolanio was put on a list of supposed members of the Communist Party of the Philippines operating in southern Mindanao.

A website, hukbo.com, posted a “Know Your Enemy” list on Facebook on Sept. 28 listing Bolanio as a communist rebel.

The site was inaccessible on Sunday.

It runs stories mostly about the Armed Forces of the Philippines although it could not be determined if the site was being maintained by the AFP.

OND, in a statement signed by Hisug and other nuns, said it expressed a “strong displeasure and indignation against the baseless and unjust post” identifying Bolanio as a communist rebel.

Bolanio, the OND statement said, “is a perpetual member of OND and as such has endeavored to attend to the pastoral and social needs of peoples and communities.”

Bolanio is the executive director of Hesed Foundation Inc., which the Cotabato City-based OND established as a link between the religious congregation and people in remote communities.

Hesed means “doing compassion and action for justice.”

OND Hesed Foundation Inc. is composed of people from the Church, private sector, educational institutions and ordinary yet concerned individuals who share a common vision to offer hope to the least and the lost in society, Hisug said.

Military denial

Lt. Col. Jones Otida, head of the Army’s 27th Infantry Battalion based in South Cotabato province, denied the military was behind the tagging of Bolanio as a communist rebel.