MANILA, Philippines — A Catholic bishop on Tuesday said Church leaders and the faithful should speak out against the continued drug-related killings in the Philippines.
"If we are true to our call to be Church of the Poor, we cannot as a Church keep silent on these issues," Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said at the 4th Apostolic Congress on Mercy in Manila, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines News website reported.
Pabillo, who formerly chaired the CBCP's National Secretariat for Social Action, and Peace, said that Catholics should not be afraid to denounce extrajudicial killings in the country.
More than 6,000 people with suspected links to illegal drugs have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs started last July. The government has insisted that 2,550 of those killed were drug suspects who fought back. The rest, it has attributed to vigilantes and to drug syndicates.
The UN, the US, the EU and human rights groups have all called out to the president to ensure that the rule of law is respected in all law enforcement operations.
READ: Drug war victims’ kin want gov't-NDF panel to probe deaths
Pabillo said that with the 6,000 killed, more than 30,000 people are directly affected and orphaned of their family members.
"These thousands are deeply traumatized and even now made more poor," Pabillo added.
He also said that, for him, it is not an insult to be labelled an "activist bishop" and be identified with the poor and the oppressed since he is "not speaking for myself, but for the poor and voiceless."
"It is what I am supposed to be, to be a follower of Christ," Pabillo added.
Pabillo, the current chairman of the Commission on the Laity of the Catholic Bishops Conference Philippines, will be leading a "Walk for Life" in Manila on February 18 to demonstrate their disapproval of EJKs.
Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas President Zenaida Capistrano said that it is time the laypeople convey their opposition to thousands of unexplained killings.
"We, the Filipino Catholic lay faithful signify our protest against all forms of threats to human life and dignity that are coming from the economic, social, and political structures and authorities," Capistrano said.
Laypeople are not ordained as part of the clergy but actively help the Church.