MANILA, Philippines — Churches in Metro Manila rang their bells last week, marking the beginning of the 40-night ritual to remember the thousands killed in President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.
The Catholic Church said bells would ring for five minutes at 8 p.m. following the appeal of Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle last September 8.
FULL STORY: Manila churches toll bells for the dead in drug war
Tagle released a letter saying that the killings should not be the “new normal” in the Philippines, a majority Catholic country.
“(This is) to call on everyone to remember the dead and pray for them. The tolling of church bells in the evening to pray for the dead is an old Filipino custom that has almost disappeared. Now is the right time to revive it,” he said.
The National Shrine of St. Jude, which is within the Malacañan Complex and is beside the Mabini Hall that houses the Office of the President, also tolled its bells for five minutes.
Tagle’s statement came after the brutal killings of three teenagers—Kian delos Santos, Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman—two of them at the hands of Caloocan City police.
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Over 3,800 deaths have been reported by police in Duterte's drug war with the crackdown triggering wider violence that has seen thousands of other people dead in unexplained circumstances.
Watch the video on why 8 p.m. is a significant time for the Catholic Church to ring its bells.
— Video by Efigenio Toledo IV