Posted on 01/16/2008 2:40:15 AM PST by forkinsocket
MANILA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Hooded gunmen killed a Catholic priest in the restive south of the Philippines in a botched kidnapping attempt, officials said on Wednesday.
The men took away a local teacher seized along with Father Rey Roda, a parish priest on Tawi-tawi, a remote Muslim island in the southernmost tip of the archipelago, late on Tuesday.
"The reports indicated that Fr. Roda resisted and he was gunned down and killed," chief superintendent Joel Goltiao said.
"There are pursuit operations going on."
Muslim militants use Tawi-tawi and nearby Jolo as bases and banditry and kidnap-for-ransom are common on the islands.
Roda, 55, was the third missionary killed in the region since 1997.
The Philippines is a largely Catholic country but a Muslim minority in the south has been fighting for decades for some measure of self-rule.
Sickening. RIP.
I pray that Jesus will bless and help Father and his family.
.
Reuters can't get anything right.
Lying bastards.
The ITalian priests need to get the heck out of there...
Three Italian priests have been kidnapped and then released for a lot of money paid by the Italian government...and the terrorists then use that money to pay their men salaries. Without that, these men would go back to the less militant groups who are trying to make nice with the government.
It’s so bad that the last time an Italian priest was kidanpped the local newspaper joke was that the AbuSayyaf group must like Pizza because they keep kidnapping Italians.
The last Italian, Father Bossi, was ransomed but 12 PHilippine Marines looking for him were ambushed and beheaded.
When they kidnapped an American missionary couple, no ransom was paid, and the male missionary was executed when the Philippine Military (with our special forces) raided their camps. Since then no Americans kidnapped.
OF course the Italians deny ransom...but no one believes them.
This may have been why the Filipino priest resisted: Because if he became a pawn, more people (including military) would die.
It’s one thing to be a martyr, it’s another to be an enabler of murderers so you can pretend you are holy.
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