MANILA, Philippines – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) condemned the killing of Italian priest Fausto Tentorio, in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato on Monday, calling the act a “brutality and savagery that no civilized men or groups could possibly do”.
Fr. Fausto Tentorio. Photo from PIME website
In a statement, Muhammad Ameen, chairperson of the MILF Secretariat, described the killing as sign of degeneration of morality and spirituality in this country.
“We condemn this killing in the highest possible term. This is brutality and savagery that no civilized men or groups could possibly do,” he said.
He added that men of religion from any confessional groups, except when actively taking part in the war, were supposed to be unharmed.
The MILF said that Tentorio has served Mindanao since 1978 and at the time of his death, was head of the Tribal Filipinos Apostolate of the Diocese of Kidapawan, also in North Cotabato. He was first assigned in Ayala, Archdiocese of Zamboanga, for two years, and in 1980 he was transferred to the Diocese of Kidapawan in 1980. He was also stationed as mission administrator in the parish of Columbio in Sultan Kudarat, a parish comprising Lumads (indigenous peoples), Muslims and settlers.
Tentorio was the third Italian Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) priest gunned down in Mindanao but the second in the Diocese of Kidapawan.
Father Tullio Favali was gunned down by a paramilitary group led by Norberto Manero on April 15, 1985 while Father Salvador Carzedda was killed in Zamboanga City on March 20, 1992 by two men on a motorbike who overtook the vehicle he was driving.
Frances Mangosing