Group calls for military pullout from North Cotabato town after priest’s murder

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The interfaith group Exodus for Justice and Peace (EJP) called for an immediate pull-out of military troops from Arakan, North Cotabato, even as groups enraged over the killing of Italian priest Fr. Fausto Tentorio prepared for his burial.

“We denounce the worsening state of impunity in Arakan,” said Reverend Jurie Jaime, co-convener of EJP and secretary general of the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR).  He said they had received reports that soldiers also had something to do with the murder of a farmer, Ramon Batoy, in Sitio Upper Lumbo, Barangay Kabalantian, only three days into Tentorio’s wake.

“Give the people time to grieve for Pops’ murder,” Jaime said.  Batoy’s remains now lie side by side Tentorio’s in Arakan town’s Mother of Perpetual Help Church.

On Sunday afternoon, people in Arakan marched with Fr. Tentorio’s remains to the new Notre Dame high school— a school building which the priest helped build in Barangay Duroluman three kilometres away. His wake will be held at the school before his body is transferred to Kidapawan City on Monday.

In Davao City, farmers belonging to the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas coming from Paquibato, Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental, converged for a rally outside the military camp in Panacan before proceeding to the Freedom Park in downtown area, where they were to hold a night-long vigil before proceeding in a caravan to Kidapawan City, to pay tribute to the slain priest on the eve of his burial.

The military claimed that Batoy was a New People’s Army (NPA) rebel killed in an encounter, but an EJP-led fact finding team quoted Batoy’s wife Gemma as saying that her husband was killed when he refused the military entry to his house, prompting him to fight an officer with a bolo when the officer hit him with a rifle butt.

Jaime said people in Upper Lumbo had fled following the killing, leaving 48 households empty.

People have been worried that violence would intensify if the priest’s body was taken out of Arakan and the recruitment of the paramilitary group Bagani continued, Jaime said.

Norma Capuyan, vice chair of the indigenous peoples’ group Kalumaran, said that the military has stepped up the recruitment for the paramilitary group Bagani, especially in Barangay Dalag, near where police confiscated a sack full of long firearms days before the priest’s murder.

In his own account of his ordeal eight years ago, Tentorio wrote that the paramilitary group hunting him did not follow any law.

Jaime said Batoy’s family was preparing to attend the wake of Tentorio at the Mother of Perpetual Help Parish, when the soldiers came. After he was repeatedly hit by a rifle butt, Batoy reportedly hacked an Army officer’s neck with his bolo, prompting the other three soldiers to open fire.

Two other villagers, Noli Badol, a sitio leader, and Celso Batoy, an elder brother of Ramon, were reportedly beaten and detained by the military.