An expected surprise?

How can that be? I left the IC (internet cafe) the other night, having just finished almost four hours of work with updating and checking e-mail and the like (and I still didn't get all the e-mailing done I needed!), and went back to the special projects house. I was singing along to the Rent soundtrack playing on my ipod, in quite the positive mood. When I walked in the front door, I was surprised to see what looked like a small business being run from our kitchen/common area in the form of what look like ribbon art.

In fact it was a little bit like an assembly line, but the workers weren't making anything for profit.

There's a vigil tonight. Another church leader has been killed. We're making ribbons for it, want to help?

The funny thing is that the supplies that we were using to make ribbons, which by the way read "Justice for Bishop Ramento", Becca had baught in bulk because she had done this before and was sure she was going to need them again.

An excerpt from the fliers handed out at the second vigil we attended:

"The Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) has once again made a precious offering in the continuing task of proclaiming the Gospel fo Jesus Christ with the brutal killing of the Most Reverent Alberto B. Ramento, the 9th Obispo Maximo of the Church.

"The good bishop was slain by faceless assassins who broke through the rectory where he was staying at around four o'clock in the morning of October 3, 2006, in the Parish of San Sebastian, Tarlac City. He was awakened in his sleep when the assassins had entered his room and stabbed him seven times to death. We denounced in the strongest possible terms this barbaric and dastardly act against a man of the cloth within the premises of his own church."

And that's just the beginning. The statment goes on to talk more about his life and his work, and his death. The sad fact is that the police were gone and done with their investigation after only one hour's work, having left the scene open to any passerby, neglecting to put up what we would equate with yellow tape, contaminating the scene. Their initial report deemed the incident a case of robbery with homicide. Yet nothing in the church was missing. Only his ring and his cellular phone had been taken. And why would anyone want to hit a poor church in a poor community? And let me assure you, it was a very poor community. It may seem hard to believe, but it is easy for the Filipinos involved and associated with the church to know that this killing was one carried out by the military: a political killing.

Can you imagine that in our churches in the States? That any church leader who speaks out in the community is in danger of being slain? Who would stay in a church when their lives where in danger? The Filipino bishops and pastors live that reality, and that faith and fate, everyday.


"I know they are going to kill me next, but never will I abandon my ministry to God and my duty to the people."

-Bishop Alberto B Ramento

So we worked diligently for a few hours, making ribbons, writing "JUSTICE" over and over again. At six o'clock that night, we travelled to the NCCP (National Council of Churches in the Philippines) office in Quezon City, just next door to the UCCP headquarters, for a night vigil. Everyone carried candles, held posters. We passed out our red ribbons for everyone to wear and joined in solidarity during such a time.

The most striking thing was this. There is no moment of silence for the departed. Instead everyone gathers together with noisemakers, whistles, and shouts, to raise a loud ruckus in defiance of what happened. A man handed me a wooden clapper and we screamed and yelled.

I couldn't understand the Tagalog words being spoken. Granted I couldn't really hear them from the small megaphone being used in place of a microphone and speakers; the NCCP was still without power from the typhoon last week. But being with everyone, and standing with them and watching such strength, well...I got a little choked up.

Now please don't get me wrong. I don't cry that often. But I'm not afraid to admit when I do cry. This isn't a statement of trying to sound strong or whatever ego-driven statement you could think of. It is simply to show this: being in such a reality, not just hearing about it, was the most moving thing I've experienced here thus far.

But I didn't cry. At the same time I was being moved by the crowd, I was feeling ashamed. I felt so intrusive in their time. This wasn't my fight. I don't truly understand the Filipinos and their cause yet. I didn't feel like I had a right to cry or to be moved or to even participate with them during their vigil. I'm not sure I can fully explain it. It was like I hadn't yet earned the privaledge to be such a integral part of their simulatenous grieving and defiance.

Afterwards I was thanked for coming. They thanked us, the foreigners. More shame. And when we went the following night to another vigil closer to our house, we were thanked again, and recorded by all of the camera crews there. And as a topper, mentioned specifically by one of the speakers. But he put it this way. It helped to have people from other nations there. It helped to show that even though we are of different nations and different colors, we are of one heart, he said. I finally felt allowed to be just as sad, and just as angry as the rest of the people there, simply by his hidden and brief invitation.

I can't really make you understand what living in a reality like that is like, because I haven't fully realized it myself. First it's hard to think that most bishops and pastors know the risk. The old bishop who welcomed us on the second night said he wondered when his time would be. But it's harder to believe, even for me, that there can be any motivation for a government to murder leaders of the church. Bishop Ramento was a simply a minister who spoke for the workers and for the poor. He was involved in negotiations between the government and a worker's rights group. He spoke out against the political repression and human rights violations in the Philippines, and denounced the extra judicial killings of militant leaders, social activists, lawyers, journalists, church people under the GMA administration. What any good Christian here would do.

I guess they thought that was reason enough.

Peace, I hope