Tullio Favali was an Italian missionary who was a parish priest in a town in Cotabato where the New People’s Army operated and who therefore was a suspected NPA sympathizer because he worked among farmers and protested martial law abuses. He was confronting a government militia force led by the Manero brothers when they shot him in cold blood, his head blown off by a militia gun fired pointblank into his face. (Fr. Favali’s story is told more fully on the Bantayog website.)
That was in 1985. But that did not stop foreigners—priests, nuns, lay volunteers, researchers, activists—from joining progressive organizations and protest rallies not just in Metro Manila but in other cities and town centers as part of their advocacy. We welcomed all forms of support that they extended to unions, urban poor groups, peasant associations, indigenous communities, and Filipino activist groups that worked among the poor. Continue reading “The Manero mindset is all around us”