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NPA hits Quiboloy over killing of tribe chieftain, 3 kids in Davao


MANILA, Philippines - Despite saying it has "no quarrel" with followers of television evangelist Apollo Quiboloy, the communist New People's Army (NPA) on Monday criticized the Quiboloy over the killing of a tribal chieftain and his family in Davao City last April 29. NPA's Medardo Arce Command spokesman Rigoberto Sanchez scored Quiboloy for trying to muddle issues leveled against him and his military "protectors" in the killing of Dominador Diarog and his three children. The NPA earlier claimed that Diarog was shot at the behest of Quiboloy. Davao City police on the other hand earlier said they suspect a land dispute to be behind the predawn killing in the city's Tugbok district. "As he tries to divert public attention from real issues that has put him in a very bad light, he further invites attention to the injustice that prevails and incites people to let out sentiments that range from ridicule to denunciation," Sanchez said in a statement on the Communist Party of the Philippines website. "First, he berates media people for supporting the cries of the Diarog family and threatens them with eternal damnation. Then, fashioned after Pontius Pilate, he makes a blanket, albeit, baseless denial of any involvement in the cold-blooded massacre. But bereft of any courage to face the lumad victims, he hides behind the legalistic mantra of his lawyer. Now he warns of a 20,000-strong armed offensive against the NPA," Sanchez said of Quiboloy. Sanchez said that while freedom of worship is a right upheld by the revolutionary movement, Quiboloy used it as an instrument to oppress and exploit the people. "To utilize his religious, economic, political and military influence to establish and expand his estate, cause the evacuation of lumads from their ancestral lands and add misery to poor peasants constitute sinister acts that justly deserve condemnation," Sanchez said. "The NPA has no quarrel with Apollo Quiboloy's prayerful flock. But this multi-millionaire pastor's elitist arrogance and deep-seated contempt for lumads and peasants who resist his land grabbing practices rightly deserves the public ridicule and mounting isolation that he is earning," he added. - GMANews.TV
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