Anakbayan: Murdered priest was anti-mining advocate who helped indigenous peoples

Leftist youth group Anakbayan on Sunday condemned the murder of Father Mark Ventura in Cagayan, saying it was another killing of a church person under President Rodrigo Duterte's "regime."

Ventura had just finished celebrating Mass and was blessing some children at 8 a.m. on Sunday when a helmet-wearing gunman approached and shot him twice.

The killer escaped on a motorcycle with an accomplice.

Anakbayan said that Ventura, the parish priest of the San Isidro Labrador Mission Station in Barangay Mabono, had been "known for his anti-mining advocacies and for helping indigenous peoples in Cagayan."

The group also accused Duterte of conducting a "fascist campaign" that "has rendered people from the religious sector as legitimate targets of killings, intimidation and harassment for speaking up not only against the madman’s bloody war on drugs but also against the social and political injustices perpetrated by the regime," noting the recent arrest of and deportation order against Sister Patricia Fox, after the President ordered her investigated for supposed "disorderly conduct."

Anakbayan claimed that the current administration "utilizes all machineries at its disposal to wage a bloody war against Filipinos" as "popular dissent against Duterte’s anti-people policies and pronouncements continue to grow."

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) also condemned Ventura's killing, saying it was an "evil act." — Anna Felicia Bajo/BM, GMA News