‘If they want to remove me, they have to kill me’

BAGABAG, Nueva Vizcaya — Hundreds of parishioners staged a rally here the other day to press the ouster of their parish priest due to his alleged unauthorized and unaccounted use of church funds, ostentatious lifestyle and arrogance.

However, beleaguered Msgr. Emilio Vicente Tugadi vowed not to leave the Saint Jerome Parish here, saying he will fight the "misrepresented" church members to the end.

"If they want to remove me, they have to kill me," Tugadi said, branding the allegations against him as "merely fabricated, baseless and malicious."

Tension heightened as hundreds of supporters of both camps staged separate rallies here Saturday. The pro-ouster rallyists gathered inside the town’s gymnasium, only about 20 meters away from the convent where Tugadi’s supporters held their ground.

The volatile atmosphere prompted Bayombong Bishop Ramon Villena to postpone at the last minute a scheduled dialogue with Tugadi and the leaders of both camps.

"How can there be a dialogue in a situation of possible intimidation and coercion? I do not think any dialogue can occur under these circumstances," Villena said in a statement read by his emissary, Fr. Vic Tiam.

Vandalism

Earlier, Villena had denounced parishioners who vandalized the church premises last Thursday. In a statement read over the Catholic Church-owned Radio Veritas here, he warned that the Church will not hesitate to file criminal charges against parishioners found writing "discriminatory" messages on walls.

The protesters, who call themselves the Christian Herald Against Lavish, Incompetent and Corrupt Ecclesiastics (CHALICE), accused Tugadi of "sowing disunity and dissension" among the local faithful.

In a seven-page petition addressed to Villena, the group accused Tugadi of displaying "a luxurious and ostensibly extravagant standard of living" and using parish funds in sponsoring "lavish personal occasions." More than 2,000 parishioners endorsed the petition.

Tugadi, however, questioned the authenticity of the signatures, saying the names appearing on the petition are not church members and "most are not even attending church services."

"They are making a misrepresentation of the parish (of Bagabag)," he said.

Disgruntled parishioners said Tugadi violated the policy of transparency for refusing to report the income and expenditures of the parish. "He refused to submit any accounting of his spending and would not allow any audit of parish funds," the group said.

Tugadi was also criticized for his alleged refusal to perform last rites to sick parishioners whose families could not afford the prescribed church fees.

He was also criticized for his alleged refusal to christen babies even if some of them are dying "on flimsy reason that these baptisms were not on his schedule."

Tugadi was also accused of "arbitrarily" increasing Church fees by more than 100 percent, including those for cemetery lots, affecting mostly indigent parishioners.

The increase in fees, the protesters said, enables him to "virtually subsidize his wasteful and elitist way of living."