MEMBERS of the militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) gathered around a stone marker in Barangay Tisa, Cebu City, to light candles and offer flowers and prayers for the late Fr. Rudy Romano who went missing in 1985.
Jayme Paglinawan, Bayan-Central Visayas head, said the Redemptorist priest is a symbol of their cry for justice for all victims of terrorism.
“The life of Fr. Rudy Romano was not limited inside the church that he served. He also went out into the community. He mingled with ordinary people in the city and other different places in the provinces in Cebu,” Paglinawan said in Cebuano.
In celebration of the 32nd year of Fr. Rudy’s abduction, Bayan members called for an end to the martial rule in Mindanao.
Paglinawan said that progress — not militarization — is the solution to poverty which is the “root of terrorism in the country.”
He said that the war-torn Marawi City is one of the poorest places in the country.
He also said that if poverty is addressed by the government, terrorist groups will have a difficulty in recruiting members.