A PANEL of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has withdrawn its membership in the government’s anti-communist task force as it seeks to keep its independence.
Priest Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the CBCP Public Affairs Commission, said the panel will still maintain its engagements with the task force but would opt to “preserve” its independence.
“If we will be the lone voice in the body, making all these claims, making all these suggestions, our inputs might get diluted,” he told ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo, noting the importance of an outsider’s view.
“Even without that membership, we continue to have engagements with them, because we are able to relay to them our concerns, when for example there are church people who are allegedly red-tagged,” Mr. Secillano said. “We are grateful because they take notice of it, and they do something about it.”
Last August when the CBCP’s inclusion in the task force was announced, Church leaders were among those who criticized the development, deplored the government agency’s history of red-tagging many personalities, including church workers and other human rights advocates.
But on Sept. 1, Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David who heads the CBCP said it was the panel, not the order of bishops, that joined the task force “as a private sector representative.”
Mr. David, 64, has been vocal against the rights abuses being committed by Philippine security forces, especially under former president Rodrigo R. Duterte, who created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
