COTABATO CITY—Muslim and Christian leaders condemned the bombing on Wednesday of a Protestant church in Pikit, North Cotabato that killed two churchgoers and wounded three others, saying places of worship should never be targets of violent acts.
Ustadz Muhammad Sulaiman, of the Ulama Congress of the Philippines (UCP), said attacks on places of worship should quickly be condemned as they go against the teachings of Prophet Muhammad.
Sulaiman said a fatwa, or edict, should be issued anytime this week against the grenade attack at the chapel of the United Church of Christ of the Philippines.
The fatwa would be issued during a meeting by local ulama (Muslim scholars). A fatwa, or collective opinion, based on the Koran and Muslim law is occasionally issued by Muslim scholars.
Just last month, 126 muftis worldwide also issued a fatwa against the increasing cases of violence perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).
Expressing doubt that the Pikit attack is Isis-inspired, peace worker Kadzmir Pamaran, in a statement on his Facebook account, said “Islam forbids the killing of innocents.”
In its Facebook account, the Bangsamoro Center for Justice and Peace (BCJP) also condemned the bombing.
“No words are strong enough to condemn the barbaric and cruel attacks on peaceful citizens while offering prayers,” said the statement issued by Bobby Benito, BCJP director.
Prof. Ding Dalamban, of the Cotabato City State Polytechnic College, said: “Why don’t they kill their enemies instead of blasting a church?”
Fatima Mending Abas, executive of an international nongovernment organization, in her Facebook account, asked: “Why do they have to include places of worship?”
Abas recounted the death of her father 11 years ago in a grenade attack on a mosque in 2003.
Lawyer Kirby Matalam, of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance Response Team, said the attack could be a ploy to “create religious-based animosity.”
Another Muslim, Guiapal Musa, said “we must condemn all forms of violence and terrorism because no religion or belief condones such acts.”
UCCP has urged authorities to solve the case quickly. “No circumstance or reason can justify” the attack, said UCCP general secretary Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza in a statement.
UCCP also asked its members to exercise sobriety but be vigilant. “Let us do all we can to avoid the further escalation of violence,” Marigza said.
In a statement, a national Protestant and evangelical group urged authorities to conduct a swift investigation of the attack.
“When one part of the church suffers, we all suffer,” said Rev. Fr. Rex Reyes, secretary general of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), in a statement.
NCCP is composed of 10 Protestant churches in the country, which include UCCP.
“We have had enough of the culture of impunity in our country where the innocent suffer and the guilty go free,” Reyes said.
UCCP, Reyes said, also had the most pastors and church workers in recent years who were victims of “extra-judicial killings.” Many of them were involved in human rights and social justice work. Nash Maulana, Karlos Manlupig and Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao and Maurice Malanes, Inquirer Northern Luzon
RELATED STORIES
2 killed, 3 hurt in grenade attack on UCCP church in North Cotabato
More bombs found in North Cotabato