Military protests school’s ‘malicious propaganda’

THE military has decried alleged “malicious propaganda” by the administration of a college run by Roman Catholic nuns accusing the armed forces of killing religious leaders such as the Italian missionary priest Fausto Tentorio.

Col. Leopoldo Galon, spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Command, Friday said the administration of the Assumption College on Cabaguio Avenue in Davao City had strung a streamer across its gate reading, “Stop killing religious leaders under Oplan Bayanihan.”

The streamer was put up during demonstrations protesting the killing of Tentorio in North Cotabato last October and remains at the school’s entrance to this day.

Galon said the streamer insinuates that the military had something to do with Tentorio’s murder, and unless the nuns running the school took it down, the military would mount a campaign urging parents not to enroll their children in the school.

Tentorio was felled by an assassin’s bullet while preparing to leave his convent in Arakan, North Cotabato. Militants have accused the military of ordering the killing because the priest allegedly supported communist rebels.

The authorities eventually arrested a man, who claimed he shot and killed Tentorio on orders of landowners affected by the priest’s opposition to a hydropower dam project in Arakan.

Galon said that what was particularly disheartening to the military was that the streamer remains at the entrance to Assumption College even after the arrest of the suspected gunman.

Report from Inquirer.Net