Priests still facing death threats

Yesterday, two weeks after President Duterte started walking back his statements calling for the death of bishops and priests, three priests went public with the death threats they and two bishops have received in recent months. It was an extraordinary news conference at a theological school in Quezon City, not only because the three priests — Albert Alejo, SJ; Robert Reyes; and Flavie Villanueva, SVD — alternated their grim presentation establishing a pattern of intimidation with hopeful meditations, even the reading of an excerpt from a poem.

More unusual: Two of the three priests, Reyes and Villanueva, said they declined offers from the Philippine National Police to assign bodyguards to them, and the third, Alejo, said if he received such an offer he would have to decline it, too. Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, one of the most outspoken critics of the appalling death toll of the Duterte administration’s main program, the so-called war on drugs, has also declined an offer of police protection.

The priests asked the public to understand why they needed to decline the offers. As things stand, they cannot wholly trust the same organization implicated in thousands of killings. Reyes, known to many before as the “running priest” because he used running as a means to advocate for his causes, said they would rather rely on their parishioners and their fellow priests, and on the public, for protection.

This attitude should find some resonance among the public. The same surveys that show high public support for the campaign against illegal drugs also show that some three-fourths of voting-age Filipinos fear that they or someone they know will be the next victim of an extrajudicial killing. And over the last two and a half years, only between 5 and 10 percent of Filipinos say they believe the police when the police say the drug suspects were killed because they fought back. This is the undercurrent of deep anxiety that also characterizes public reception of President Duterte’s war on the mostly poor.

Villanueva noted common elements that characterized each drug-related killing, including a couple of sachets of shabu, a .38-caliber revolver, and the fact that all the dead had dirty feet—and then wondered aloud whether there were in fact thousands of these .38-caliber revolvers already in the possession of the police. Surely these guns, kept as evidence, would now number in the thousands?

Villanueva, who also showed video footage showing a masked man casing the place where he worked, was suggesting what many Filipinos may already suspect: That these sachets and especially these weapons, used to justify the extrajudicial execution of drug suspects, are mere props, recycled from killing to killing.

The most striking impression I received from watching the live streaming of the news conference was the language of the threats that the three priests, Bishop David, and Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, received.

One message sent to David, for instance, read as follows (spelling as presented in the news conference): “Masyado kayung paki alamero ni Socrates lalo na yung olopong nyung pari si Alejo at Reyes. Putang ina talaga kayu. Pakialamero kayu… Ilalabas namin mga scandalo ng olopong nyung pari. Makipagtulungan na kasi kayu. PI talaga kayu. Pesteng yawa kayu…”

A translation: “You and [Archbishop] Socrates [Villegas] meddle too much, especially those treacherous priests [Albert] Alejo and [Robert] Reyes. You are real sons of bitches. You meddlers… We will bring out the scandals of your treacherous priests. You really should cooperate. You’re all SOBs. You’re all damned devils…”

On the same day, David received the following message: “PI kayu gusto nyu pa sigurong may mamatay. Pesteng yawa talaga kayu.” A quick translation: “You’re SOBs. Maybe you want someone to be killed. You’re all damned devils.”

The messages do not seem to have been written by a native Tagalog speaker; the spelling suggests someone who learned to spell the words through everyday conversation, not in school. And the insult or curse used to “sign off” the messages is not Tagalog, but Bisaya: “Pisting yawa” can mean anything from merely annoying to something deeply enraging.

But the kicker: The priests and the bishops are described exactly as President Duterte, in mid-rant, describes priests and bishops he wants killed. As meddlers. As too noisy for their own good.

At the very same time he was walking back his statements two weeks ago, Mr. Duterte couldn’t help but reveal what he really thought of David and others like him. He called them arrogant, as making too much noise.

When the President makes a death threat, Reyes said at the news conference, it becomes policy. He called it.

On Twitter: @jnery_newsstand, email: [email protected]