Indonesian priest killed in remote Kalinga town

TABUK, Kalinga – Palm Sunday is usually a day of celebration, marking the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem. But for residents of a remote village in Lubuagan town, it was a day of mourning following the bloody killing of their young Indonesian priest by a man who was later arrested by police.

Fr. Francis Madhu, 31, was shot dead by Nestor Wailan alias Sukman while the priest was on his way to say Mass in a far-flung sitio in Barangay Mabungot, Lubuagan where he has been serving for the last 10 years, Lubuagan police records showed.

Lt. Francis Lardizabal, commanding officer of the Army’s 21st Infantry Battalion, said the 35-year-old suspect, a resident of Barangay Canao here, accosted the priest, brandished an M-16 Armalite rifle, and then shot him at close range.

The young priest immediately succumbed to five gunshot wounds on his throat. The incident took place at around 4 p.m. Sunday, or two hours before he was to officiate Mass in the area.

The motive for the killing has yet to be established, and Wailan, a farmer, is being interrogated by members of the Kalinga police, said Cordillera Administrative Region police director Chief Superintendent Raul Gonzales.

The Army said that Madhu was in the company of several catechists and some church members in Sitio Dugnat when they were accosted by Wailan, who appeared to be high on marijuana.

According to the Army, the suspect reportedly accused the priest of some wrongdoings before killing him.

Wailan was positively identified by witnesses as the one who gunned down Madhu, a native of Flores, one of the islands of East Nusa Tenggara province in Indonesia. Wailan fled on foot with his companions, one of whom was identified as Joel Waingan.

In his report to Camp Crame, Gonzales said Wailan had a brief conversation with Madhu before the murder.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) immediately condemned the killing, saying it was "an attack on the Church."

Caloocan Bishop Deogracia Iñiguez Jr., CBCP media affairs chair, called on authorities to solve the murder without delay.

"We hope the killers would be brought to justice. We may not be sure of the motive – it could be personal – but this killing could be considered an attack on the Church," Iñiguez said.

Rev. Fr. Jerome Adriatico, provincial supervisor of the missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word in the northern Philippines, said they were clueless as to the killer’s motive. He said it was unlikely for the murdered priest to be involved in a grudge.

Tabuk Bishop Prudencio Andaya Jr. denounced the gruesome killing of the "helpless" priest, as he called on government authorities for the early solution of the incident.

As of press time, local Church officials led by Andaya along with Army and police personnel were still on their way to Barangay Mabungtot, an extremely remote mountain area, to retrieve the priest’s remains.

Gonzales said investigators could not immediately be reached for any updates because there was no mobile phone service in the area.

Mabungtot is a two-hour walk from the town proper, Gonzales noted.

Due to the difficulty of reaching the area, the village is said to be a favorite hiding place of persons wanted by the law as well as the usual transit point of armed groups believed to be New People’s Army rebels as well as factions of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army. – With AP, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Edu Punay, Artemio Dumlao, AFP