Member of Rise Up were among those who attended the “Lord Heal Our Land’ Mass celebrated by Archbishop Socrates Villegas on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, at the historic Edsa Shrine. (Photo by PATHRICIA ANN V. ROXAS)
While Christians outnumbered the attendees of “Lord, Heal Our Land” activities on Edsa, a number of Muslims also joined their brothers and sisters in prayer asking for a stop in the killings linked to the war on drugs of President Rodrigo Duterte.
While Archbishop Socrates Villegas was celebrating Mass at the Edsa Shrine, 45-year-old Fatima Talusal was with other Muslim women at the side of a nearby Robinsons Galleria listening to the prayers.
Talusal said she was with other members of urban poor group Kabalikat sa Pag-unlad ng Baseco Compound, an informal settlers area in Tondo, Manila.
“While we don’t know what they’re saying, we share the same prayers that the killings should stop right now,” she said.
“There were fewer killings in our area now, but that won’t let us forget the time especially last year where there were dead bodies every day,” she recalled.
After the Mass, attendees marched for a kilometer along Edsa to the People Power Monument at the southern corner of Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
Holding their lit candles, thousands prayed the Holy Rosary while cars and buses honked.
Traffic became heavy at the northbound side of Edsa near Ortigas Avenue after the marchers occupied two lanes of the road.
Tindig Pilipinas, one of the organizers of Sunday’s activities estimated the crowd at 20,000. The Quezon City Police District gave a much lower estimate of 5,500 by 5:25 p.m.
When the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, the same image brought by the devotees of the 1986 People Power revolution, reached White Plains Avenue, Villegas led another prayer of the rosary.
At the end, Villegas declared: “The healing begins now.”
The attendees then held up their lighted candles.
Despite the organizers calling the event “purely a religious, spiritual, and not political,” members of the minority in the Senate granted talks on the sidelines of the event.
For Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, joining the march and program at People Power Monument was “a spiritually unifiying experience.”
“The turnout of people attending on Sunday was a testament of growing number of people being enlightened about the truth after being deceived by the promises of Mr. Duterte,” Trillanes said.
The senator, one of the staunchest critics of the President, maintained that the family of the President was involved in illegal drugs in Davao City.
“You see this large crowd here? This is what Mr. Duterte will be fighting against if he does not change his ways. He’ll be late to realize that not only a few were already enlightened,” Trillanes said.
Sen. Bam Aquino, on the other hand, noted how the people joining in their protests since last year had been changing for the better.
“This crowd is different: There were priests, nuns, church communities. While walking here I am with former drug dependents. I think it is the perfect time to call to end the killings, and for the government to support the right to life,” he said.
Aquino also called on to “those who are already seeing the bad things happening in the country to stand up and talk.”
Sen. Risa Hontiveros called for a unity to serve justice to the families of the thousands of victims of drug killings, which “will heal the deep wounds of the country.”
Hontiveros said the drug problem should be dealt with a “public health approach,” more than the government’s antidrug campaign, Oplan Tokhang, where more than 3,000 drug suspects were killed by police officers.
“We need to investigate those killing and hold those accountable. This is the start to end this nightmare,” she said.
“I hope the President listens to the calls of the people here. He should value life as much as values the high ratings he gets from the surveys,” Hontiveros said. /atm