THE Diocese of Bacolod will join the Catholic Churches nationwide in the ringing of bells every night for three months to protest the latest wave of killings of drug suspects by policemen.
Fr. Jonas Sumagaysay, spokesperson of the Diocese of Bacolod, said that
starting Tuesday, August 22, church bells would toll for 15 minutes to raise alarm on the number of deaths due to the administration’s war against illegal drugs.
“The ringing of the bell is a humanitarian call to stop the drug killings,” he said.
Sumagaysay added that it will also ask the government to stop the drug killings, adding that some of the victims were minors including 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, who was killed in an anti-drug operation in Caloocan City last week.
The move comes after more than 80 drug and crime suspects were gunned down by police in metropolitan Manila and nearby Bulacan province in just three days last week, the bloodiest few days since President Rodrigo Duterte's crackdown started in July last year.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) also condemned the police killings of drug suspects.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, CBCP president, said the tolling of the church bells is to rouse a citizenry "which has become a coward in expressing anger against evil."
Anger and protests have focused on last week's shooting of De los Santos, who police say was a drug dealer who opened fire with a pistol during a raid, prompting law enforcers to shoot him.
The family of the slain 17-year-old student said he was mercilessly shot by police as he was pleading for his life.
Police said the student attempted to escape during a raid that sparked a chase Wednesday night.
The student's parents and some neighbors denied the police claim, pointing to security camera footage that showed a man, who they said was De los Santos, being held by both arms and dragged away from his home shortly before he was shot nearby.
Rally
Some young people trooped to the Capitol Park and Lagoon in Bacolod City late Monday to condemn the death of De los Santos.
Members of the Humanist Alliance Philippines International led by convenor Alvin John Ballares lighted candles at Paghimud-os Shrine at the Capitol Park as they expressed their indignation to the government’s war on drugs.
In a statement, the group said they are firmly on the side of human rights, due process, justice, and protecting the citizenry from gross abuse of power perpetuated by those in the position to do so.
“In the Philippines, with its long history of human rights-centeredness, we have seen enacted an inhumane policy of state-sponsored murder in the name of a flawed and failing war on drugs, the bodies of victims bereft of justice in a court of law piling up higher and higher every day,” they said.
The group added: “We have seen one too many children murdered and called ‘collateral damage.’ We have heard the police excuse that all kills were drug addicts that ‘nanakbo and ‘nanlaban,’ but (last week) we saw an innocent 11th-grader dragged, punched in the stomach, handed a gun by the police told to fire it while running, and shot doing so.”
The group expressed their solidarity with the victims and their families.
“We also call upon all Filipinos who belong to secular, humanist, and freethinking communities in the Philippines and elsewhere to stand together with human rights advocates in defense of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Philippine Bill of Rights, documents created in the spirit of the ideals we profess.
We implore them to be vocal in their condemnation of all policies and rhetoric that seek to undermine these ideals, to take whatever action they can to affirm the worth and dignity of the human person, and to hold their governments accountable for the violation of fundamental human rights enshrined in the constitutions of all countries,” the statement said.
Rallies condemning the killing of De los Santos were also held in Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao Monday. (with reports from AP)