Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Pikit (Fides Service) - Fighting in Mindanao is not a war between Muslims and Christians, Father Robert Layson, Oblate Missionary of Mary Immaculate (OMI), parish priest in Pikit and head of the OMI interreligious dialogue team in the Philippines told Fides. Pikit is in Mindanao, in the province of North Cotabato.
Father Layson mentioned the recent generous act made by Abubakar Salip Iston, a Muslim bus driver shot dead in Jolo on 19 February while trying to protect 7 year old Catholic school girl Rachel Ann Gujit, from being kidnapped by bandits: the child was eventually rescued by security forces on March 9 almost three weeks later. Salip Iston was killed with a shot to his head and he left a wife and a ten year old son. The local Catholic community has offered to help support the widowed mother.
Father Layson said: “This Muslim died to save a little Catholic school girl and it was not the only episode of reciprocal solidarity among Christians and Muslims. To escape attacks by Japanese troops during World War II the mostly Catholic people of Pikit a coastal area, were given shelter in a more interior district by a Muslim community at Liguasan. This is only one example of Christian-Muslim friendship in the past and it continues in the present. Last month, during clashes between armed separatist and the Philippines army in Buliok, Muslims from Buliok found shelter in a mostly Christian area. The local Catholic Church provided the Muslim refugees with accomodation and food. When the danger was over and the time came to go home, many Muslims had tears in their eyes when they said goodbye to their Catholic hosts”.
“In Mindanao the lives of the people, whether Catholics, Muslims or Animists, are interwoven”, Father Layson concludes. “Perhaps when everyone in Mindanao comes to realise that they are brothers and sisters, then Mindanao will live in peace and sacrifices like the death of Abubakar Salip Iston will not have been in vain”.
In Jolo, the stronghold of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, another Christian is still held hostage by one of the many local groups of bandits whose aim is to make money and who usually pick religious personnel and western businessmen. In May 2001 American Protestant missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham were taken hostage: after months of detention the husband was killed but the wife was rescued. In 1997 Bishop Benjamin de Jesus apostolic vicar of Jolo was murdered in front of his cathedral. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 15/3/2004 lines 40 words 444)
