The Philippine Online Chronicles

A mass will be held in Rome on October 25 for murdered missionary Fausto Tentorio.

To be held at the Church of S. Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs) at Piazza della Repubblica, the mass will coincide with Tentorio’s funeral mass and burial in Kidapawan.

Catholic news site Asianews reported that the Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere (PIME) or the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, to which Tentorio belongs, organized the event in coordination with the Diocesan Missionary Center and the Pontifical Missionary Union.

A fellow PIME member and long-time collaborator of Tentorio will be giving a testimonial. Benedetti himself has been to the Philippines and was kidnapped and held captive in 1998 by rebels in Mindanao.

According to GMA News Online, Tentorio is the third PIME missionary to be killed in Mindanao. The first was Fr. Tullio Favali who was killed by private armed guards in 1985 while the second was Fr. Salvatore Carzedda who was killed in Zamboanga in 1992. In 2007, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi was kidnapped by a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Tentorio was shot dead on Oct. 17 by motorcycle-riding assassins in Kidapawan City.

He is known as a staunch environmentalist, opposing mining operations in North Cotabato, and a Lumad ally, helping them protect their ancestral lands from being usurped by influential groups in the area.

Other priests targeted

Meanwhile, Philippine Star reported that a source from the military said that two foreign priests are also being targeted by hired guns in Mindanao. One of them is said to be doing missionary work in the Zamboanga Peninsula, another in Central Mindanao.

“We have intelligence reports these two foreign priests are also targets of liquidation by hired guns working for influential people in Mindanao,” the unnamed source said.

He added that they are trying to “derail the plot” through counter security measures with the two missionaries being left in the dark.

Military a suspect

Yesterday, the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines – Southern Mindanao Region (RMP-SMR) came out with a statement condemning the “dastardly killing” of their board member.

The group asserted that the military had a hand in the murder.

“Fr. Pops, as we fondly call him, has eluded the previous attempt on his life by the Bagani paramilitary force under 73rd IB on 2003 in Bukidnon as he visited parish projects for the indigenous tribe of Manobos in Kitaotao. Maybe no one knew the identities of the helmeted assailants. But the paramilitary forces under 73rd IB of the Philippine Army have openly declared he is a target needed to be ‘cleared’ in their desire to remove protesters in the plantation expansion in the area in 2003 when they nearly killed him in Kitaotao, Bukidnon,” the group said.

They narrated that various campaigns Tentorio had been involved in, such as the struggle for genuine agrarian reform.

They called for justice and accountability of the Aquino administration.

The Kilusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KMP) in Southern Mindanao also held a protest rally yesterday.

“It is very ironic that we are commemorating October as peasant month, but one of the staunch peasants and lumads advocate, Fr. Pops was gunned down by believed to be agent of the State and human rights violations against peasantry and lumads in the country sides due to militarization continue unabated,” the group said in a statement.