Letter from the Coordinator 2006-11-06

Warmest greetings from the Philippines and my apologies for being late in sending you this third Letter from the Coordinator. But it surely is a great pleasure to touch base again through this letter with our network.

Unmitigated political killings in the Philippines reached an unprecedented level of impunity with the shocking murder on October 3 of a ranking church leader and founding member of Peace for Life (PfL), former Obispo Maximo Alberto Ramento of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI). Some of you met him at our Davao inaugural assembly in December 2004 and more recently, at a public forum we organized in Manila only last July in connection with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) consultation addressing the theme, “Faith Stance on Empire”. In both meetings, he took pride in the revolutionary heritage of the IFI or Philippine Independent Church—a product of the anti-colonial struggle against Spanish colonial rule—and spoke about the continuing relevance of national liberation movements against imperial incursions and violence.

The critical human rights situation in the Philippines therefore continued to be the focus of much of our international solidarity campaign since my last letter issued on August 29. The tragic death of the former Obispo Maximo and chairperson of the National Council of Churches (NCC) in the Philippines brought to 10 the number of clergymen martyred for living out their faith at great risk to their lives under the US-sponsored Macapagal-Arroyo dispensation.

During one of the nights of tribute honoring the murdered bishop, members of the PfL secretariat read our statement, along with solidarity messages from the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Christian Conference of Asia. We also quoted from messages issued by PfL Continuation Committee members and network participants, including Omega Bula of the United Church of Canada (UCC), Chandra Muzaffar of the International Movement for a Just World, Toshimasa Yamamoto of the NCC Japan and Kim Yong-Bock of the Pacific Graduate School for the Integral Study of Life. Moving letters were also received by our office from colleagues who had met him and whose lives he had touched: John Jones of Networkers, Ulrich Duchrow of Kairos-Europe, Andrea Mann of the Anglican Church of Canada and Maake Masango.

Before the tragedy struck, I attended the WCC Central Committee meeting in Geneva where I collaborated with PfL Continuation Committee members Rev. Gregor Henderson and Clement John in drafting a statement condemning politically motivated slayings in the Philippines. Clement, who has assumed the post of interim director of the Churches Commission on International Affairs (CCIA), provided much needed support not only for the passage of the statement on the Philippines but also the statement on the Sri Lankan crisis. Both strongly worded statements were endorsed by the Public Issues Committee and subsequently adopted by the Central Committee.

Following the WCC meeting in Geneva which closed on September 6, I visited London on the invitation of the Filipino Chaplaincy of the Anglican Diocese of London to draw international support for our campaign to stop the killings. In my speech to the forum participants convened by the chaplaincy in cooperation with Kadamay, a local association of Filipino migrants and immigrants, I shared the news that I saw my own name on the list of so-called “enemies of the state” in the latest edition of the military manual, Knowing the Enemy. I thus said that with the killings taking place with disquieting regularity, the question many of us active in the justice and peace ministry are forced to contemplate is: who will be next? Little did I suspect that only a few weeks later it would be our much-revered Bishop Ramento whom I served as executive assistant during his term as Obispo Maximo. In London I also had the opportunity to join the picket against the visit of Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo as well as a prayer vigil in front of the Westminster Cathedral organized by British-Philippine solidarity groups in protest of the killings.

After London I traveled to Holland where I spoke anew about the spate of politically motivated slayings in the Philippines at an ecumenical forum in Utrecht hosted by Archbishop A.B. Vercammen who represents the Old Catholic Church of Netherlands in the WCC Central Committee. Also invited as speaker from the Philippines was Marie-Hilao Enriquez, executive director of KARAPATAN, the foremost human rights group in the Philippines. Among the key recommendations of the forum, organized by PfL network participant Rev. Cesar Taguba, is the deployment of a fact-finding and solidarity mission composed of Dutch church leaders to the Philippines.

Meanwhile we made remarkable progress on the long-delayed project of drafting a People’s Charter on Peace for Life. In cooperation with the local host, the Hwacheon county, our PfL colleague Kim Yong-Bock organized a small drafting consultation last October 15-17. The consultation was held to time with the launch of the Bell Park on Peace for Life, one of the major peace projects of the Hwacheon county. Participants to the workshop also joined a peace pilgrimage to the Demilitarized Zone. Among them were Continuation Committee member Ninan Koshy, who had been tasked to produce an initial draft based on an outline drawn up during the workshop, and Carmen Landsdowne of the UCC who represented the WCC in the workshop. I came late for the opening rites and pre-consultation activities since I had to stay in Manila for the indignation rally and funeral mass for Bishop Ramento. But I was able to present to the mayor of Hwacheon during the farewell dinner for international guests a Philippine bell with an inscription honoring the Filipino martyrs for peace and justice in the Philippines and dedicated to the slain bishop.

The initial draft of the peace charter will be presented for feedback to a meeting of PfL-related participants in the upcoming World Social Forum in Nairobi in January next year. The charter is expected to be adopted at the Second People’s Forum of PfL slated for September-October 2007 in the Middle East and presented for similar adoption to a variety of ecumenical, interfaith and civil-society groups.

I found myself rushing back to Europe for the Kairos-Europe conference on the theme, “Neoliberal Globalizaton and Imperial Domination” held in Mannheim, Germany on October 27-28. I was invited, together with PfL colleague Seong Won-Park, to give a presentation from the perspective of the South, highlighting the life-and-death struggles in the Philippines and other countries of the South in the context of increasingly predatory globalization and escalating imperial onslaughts. Ulrich, a founder of the Karos movement, gave a provocative theological input.

From Germany I flew to the Netherlands to serve as master of ceremonies at the Convening Program of the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) Second Session on the Philippines held only recently at the Hague on October 30. Gracing the event were Dr. Gianni Tognoni, General Secretary of the Rome-based PPT and Filipino lawmakers in the forefront of the campaign against the killings, Senator Maria Ana Madrigal and Congressman Teodoro Casino. I gave greetings of solidarity on behalf of the International Coordinating Secretariat whose office in Utrecht is hosted by the Old Catholic Church.

The tribunal seeks to bring to the attention of governments, UN human rights bodies and the international community the appalling human rights situation in the Philippines and the collusion of the Philippine and US governments, along with multilateral financial institutions and transnational corporations, in violating the rights of the Filipino people. Together with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines and the Ecumenical Bishops Forum, PfL has been invited as part of the Philippine Initiating Group for the tribunal composed mainly of human rights, peace and justice groups. The actual hearings and reading of the verdict, in which a number of Pfl colleagues will be serving as jurors, are scheduled in March 2007.

Other major Asian concerns that should have been at the center of our international campaign are the crisis in Sri Lanka and the stalled peace process in Nepal, but owing to our limited capacities we have been unable to really take more concrete and sustained action on both. We are nonetheless grateful for the regular updates that have been sent to our network by PfL colleagues Lakshan Dias and Nimalka Fernando. Of late we received the extremely disturbing—yet hardly surprising—news from NCC Nepal general secretary Dr. K.B. Rokaya, who invited PfL to send a peace and solidarity mission to Nepal last May, that the US has been blatantly intervening in, and has effectively derailed, the peace talks between the ruling Seven Party Alliance and the Maoist rebels.

Meanwhile I am pleased to report that preparations for the PfL-initiated international peace festival in Mumbai, India on December 1-3 are now in full swing. Organized by Mumbai-based organizations under the banner of “Forum for Justice and Peace” and led by PfL Working Group member Irfan Engineer, the three-day event aims to create space for cultural action and expression from diverse cultural traditions and to provide an arena for resistance against all forms of domination. It will feature dances of the tribals, harvest songs of peasants, folklore of marginalized communities including women, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities. It will also showcase local alternative films, street plays, poetry reading, photo exhibition, puppetry and painting exhibitions. Cultural teams and artists from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Korea will likewise find space for creative cross-fertilization. To be held as part of the cultural event is an international seminar featuring as guest speakers some PfL leaders and network participants from Norway, Canada, South Africa and the Carribean.

Also keeping the secretariat pretty well-occupied these past two months are plans for PfL participation both at the World Forum on Theology and Liberation and the World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi in January 2007. It will please you to know that at the WSF proper we hope to hold a range of exciting activities: a forum on liberation theology from an interfaith perspective, a women’s festival in cooperation with women’s groups in Africa, a workshop on the people’s peace charter, and a meeting of the Working Group. PfL colleagues planning to travel to Nairobi are cordially invited to our programs and requested to coordinate with our office.

Again, I am grateful for this opportunity to be in touch and to keep you abreast with the progress of our work. May this deepen our friendship and solidarity as we, together, harness the resources of our faith for the realization of our common vision: “a new world order of peace and justice that embraces equality and fullness of life for all.”

Peace and solidarity,

Carmencita

CARMENCITA P. KARAGDAG

Coordinator

Peace for Life

Photo Album: Hwacheon Workshop to draft the People’s Charter on Peace for Life