A Catholic priest and a teacher were rescued from the siege of Marawi last weekend after being abducted in May, when militants linked to Islamic State laid siege to the southern Philippines city.
Fr Teresito (Chito) Soganub, vicar general of the Prelature of St Mary in Marawi, was presented to the media on Monday at the Armed Forces of the Philippines headquarters in Manila. He told reporters that he remained in fine health and was still “physically strong and ‘handsome’”. He and his fellow hostage had escaped during a gunfight between their captors and government forces.
At least 860 people have been killed in the four-month siege in Marawi, Mindanao, regarded as a centre of the Islamic faith in the largely Catholic nation. Much of the city is destroyed. Up to 80 militants remain there, holding more than 40 hostages.
Fr Soganub was last seen in May in a video, apparently taken under duress, where he said his captors wanted the military to withdraw its forces from Marawi.
About 600 terrorists, waving Islamic State-style black flags, had seized commercial buildings, mosques and houses in the city’s central business district on 23 May. “We want to live another day and we want to live another month,” Fr Soganub said in the video, standing alone in front of debris and partially burned buildings. President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao to deal with the Marawi crisis.
Meanwhile, the Church is organising opposition to President Duterte’s drug wars. On 14 September, Catholic churches rang bells for five minutes to mark those who had died and to call for the killing to stop. This is to continue for 40 nights.
“We cannot allow the destruction of lives to become normal and we cannot govern the nation by killing,” said the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, in a statement, launching the campaign.
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