The Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines issued a statement this week reminding the country’s police force to “abstain from doing violence” especially during Lent.
The religious leaders issued the call in the wake of killings involving police officers and the shooting of a city mayor in the central Philippine province of Samar.
“This is not the Lord’s way. It is not the path to peace, justice and progress,” read the religious leaders’ statement on March 12.
The association, which is composed of religious congregations in the country, said their hearts “bleed with each loss of life.”
“Our entire being is shaken by these continuing bloodbath and the culture of impunity it has engendered,” the religious leaders said in the statement.
“We ask all the police and military forces who are Catholics to fast and abstain from doing violence in this Season of Lent and beyond,” they added.
They called on the Filipino people to “stem the tide of violence and hatred in our homes, in our workplaces, in our streets, in the halls of governance, in our society.”
In a separate statement, the Franciscan Servants of Mercy called on legislators to “stand for due process and to do justice” to the nine activists who died in a police raid on March 7 outside the capital.
“The killing of these human right advocates, labor organizers, environmentalists, and community leaders … is an act that disrespects the sacredness of life and violates human rights,” read the Franciscans’ statement.
The Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights announced that it will investigate the incident.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was “appalled by the apparently arbitrary killings.”
