CHICAGO, Illinois-The Most Reverend Frank Tracy Griswold, The Presiding Bishop of Episcopalian Church in Washington, D.C., the original church of current U.S. President Bush, has written Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Willy Gaa, asking the Philippine government to conduct an impartial investigation and more serious attention to the killings, which claimed, among others the former Obispo Maximo of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente.
In an email to Ed Navarra, Region 3
chairman of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA),
the Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara, National Missioner for Asian American Ministries
of the Episcopal Church Center in New York City, copy-furnished the officers of
NaFFAA Illinois chapter and NPC-Phil. U.S.A, said, “things have been difficult
in the Aglipayan church with several cases of extra-judicial killings.” The
NaFFAA Illinoi chapter and the NPC-Phil. U.S.A. co-sponsored the
Conference to Safeguard Filipino Media and Philippine Democracy at the 4th
Global Networking Convention and 7th National NaFFAA Conference in Honolulu , Hawaii.
“My Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop,
The Most Rev. Frank Griswold has written Ambassador Willy Gaa asking for
impartial investigation and more serious attention to these killings, which
claimed, among others the former Obispo Maximo of the Iglesia Filipina
Independente,” Fr. Vergara added. The Reverend Vergara was referring to
slain clergyman Obispo Maximo IX Alberto Ramento of the Iglesia Filipino
Independiente (IFI), also known as Aglipayan Church, last Oct. 2 in his church
in Tarlac City. Ramento’s killing was followed by the killing of another
Aglipayan priest, Fr. Dionisio Gingging, 53, who was shot and hacked dead as he
left his house to perform his usual Sunday (Oct. 8) service at Bajao Village
in Tago town, in Tandag, Surigao del Sur. At the NaFFAA Conference to
Safeguard Filipino Media and Philippine Democracy in Honolulu,
resource speaker Conrado de Quiros of the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted the
National Union of Journalists of the Philippines placing the number of
Filipino journalists killed at 86 from 1986 to present, 46 of them killed from
2001 to the present. Quiros added, Task Force Usig, placed the political
killings, including clergies, from January 2001 to Sept. 16, 2006 at 755.
Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye, for
his part, told the Conference that President Arroyo “condemns in the harshest
possible terms these killings and aims to bring these to a stop once and for
all.”
The Most Rev. Frank Griswold’s Episcopalian Church
is also the church of “more than a quarter of all presidents of the United States,”
including the father of President Bush, George H.W. Bush. The current President
Bush was raised Episcopalian and at age 40 became a born-again Methodist.
The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of
America, also known as The Episcopal
Church in the USA (ECUSA) is the American branch of the worldwide Anglican
Communion.
Jonas Jonson, bishop emeritus of Sweden
said Ramento’s “commitment to justice, his solidarity with the poor and his
faith in Christ made a deep impact on me.”
By Joseph G. Lariosa
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