The extrajudicial killing of Willem Geertman: An attack on Christian Missions

The extrajudicial killing of Willem Geertman: An attack on Christian Missions

SISTERS’ ASSOCIATION IN MINDANAO (SAMIN) STATEMENT

July 6, 2012

We grieve and condemn in the strongest terms the killing of Dutch missionary Willem Geertman, 67, who has lived a good 46 years among the people of Quezon province in Luzon until his death on July 3 last week.

President Benigno Aquino III’s conscience should be haunted by this latest killing. But no, he forms another futile Task Force which, like all the others, indicates that the government is turning another blind eye on this yet another murder of a foreign missionary in the country.

Already, the signs that authorities are in denial mode over the political nature of the killing can be seen in the preposterous claim that robbery was the motive here. Who is the government fooling? This government has produced the most ridiculous of cover-ups for state-sponsored abductions, murders, enforced evacuations, and other human rights violations against grassroots leaders, activists, and community folk.

Like the killing of Italian Missionary Fr. FaustoTentorio, PIME in October last year, and of Protestant Bishop Alberto Ramento in 2006, Geertman’s murder is not caused by petty thieves. It is traced to the state’s Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP) which targets ‘enemies of the state’. The Dutch missionary was forced to kneel before his assassins then he was gunned down.

Another life has been sacrificed at the altar of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Oplan Bayanihan. What hypocrisy for the AFP to mouth ‘Peace! Peace!’ when behind the rhetoric of the IPSP is the intent to silence those who truly work for justice and peace!

Geertman’s killing bespeaks of an escalating attack on Christian missions.

Many foreign and Filipino religious missionaries in the country are experiencing surveillance, harassment, and political killings by state security forces ranging from paramilitaries, AFP-backed fanatical cults, militaries, police, and assassin-at-large General Palparan and his ilk. Often, missionaries live among the poorest of the poor in the remotest of areas initiating programs to provide what the government has neglected to give — education, health, livelihood, and even their sense of dignity as communities.

Missionary works have been empowering communities through years of raising awareness on their human dignity and rights. Oplan Bayanihan reverses this impact by intimidating missionaries and silencing them forever.

Their work stands in stark contrast against the superficial social welfare dole-outs like the Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) and the counter-insurgency ‘peace and development’ projects of Oplan Bayanihan. Missionary works, including those by women religious in Mindanao, have led to the strengthening of community positions against largescale mining and other projects that destroy livelihoods and the environment. Government social welfare programs particularly those taken over and carried out by the AFP seek to force communities to accede to ‘development’ aggression.

We direct our indignation to President Aquino who boasts of billion-dollar foreign investments that plunder our people’s labor and the environment but fails to see that enlightened foreign missionaries are God’s grace to the poor and the oppressed.

We thank Willem for being God’s missionary who fulfilled and lived the belief that “As far as the Church is concerned, the social message of the Gospel must not be considered as theory but, above all else, a basis and a motivation for action.” (No. 57, Centesimus Annus)

Justice for Willem Geertman!

Stop killing our Missionaries and Prophets!

Sisters’ Association in Mindanao (SAMIN)