FAITH-BASED institutions and human-rights advocates worldwide have called for the immediate release of Iglesia Filipino Independiente (IFI) Bishop Carlo Morales.
On May 11 Army soldiers belonging to the 102nd Infantry Battalion manning a checkpoint in Gango, Ozamiz City, took into custody Morales, Rommel Salinas, Morales’s wife Maria Teofilina and IFI driver Isadome Dalid.
The four were taken to the Ozamiz City Police Station. They were allegedly held incommunicado.
On May 12 Salinas and Morales were charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives, while the two others were released.
In separate letters to President Duterte, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and the United Church of Canada (UCC) called for the release of Morales.
“We consider that the arrest and detention of a religious and spiritual leader, like Bishop Morales, is appalling and a violation of human rights. We urge the authorities in the Philippines to release Bishop Morales immediately,” CCA General Secretary Matthews George Chunakara said.
Patti Talbot, team leader of the Church in Mission Unit of the UCC, said “it is especially offensive that this be accorded to a person who is a religious leader—a Bishop who has an obligation to provide protection or sanctuary to a person who is in distress or politically persecuted”.
Upon the initiative of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) in the US, numerous religious leaders in the US, known American human-rights advocates, such as former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and staunch US activists, like Frank Chapman, Bill Fletcher Jr., Azadeh Shahshahani, Joe Iosbaker, Sara Flounders and John Parker, called for the release of Morales, Salinas and all political prisoners in the Philippines.
Salinas, an alleged National Democratic Front (NDF) consultant in the peace talks with the government, was arrested with Morales.
“The ICHRP network in the US not only finds that arrest of Bishop Morales and Salinas in violation of international law and agreements signed between the Philippine government and the NDF. The network appeals to you, Mr. President, that you cause the immediate and unconditional release of Bishop Carlo Morales and Rommel Salinas and all political prisoners,” they said in a letter sent to Duterte last week.