After two surveys the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) submitted 27 names for the Vatican-initiated 20th century martyrology project.
The list, sent in October to the Vatican-based Commission on New Martyrs of the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee Year 2000, included two bishops, one American and four Filipino priests, 16 European Christian Brothers (De La Salle), a Jesuit scholastic and three laypeople. Maxima Lachica Sin, mother of Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila, was the only woman on the list.
Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan told UCA News that the CBCP Research Office began in February 1997 to collect information on Catholics in the Philippines who in this century had witnessed to their faith "through the ultimate and radical offering of their life."
The CBCP president said the study sought information on Catholics who died or endured great suffering in pursuit of some Christian value.
"In an even broader sense, we can include anyone who had led an exemplary Christian life and died in the odor of sanctity and could therefore be included in the rank of the saints in heaven," Archbishop Cruz explained.
The CBCP´s information sheet on Sin read, "(Sin) was a pious woman. She heard Mass and received the Sacraments daily. She was very charitable especially to the poor people. She devoted her time in rearing her children ... she had a special devotion to the Blessed Mother and the Holy Trinity."
Her name was submitted during the second CBCP survey from July-September 1998, which also yielded data on social action workers Mateo Olivar and Santiago Monteza of the southern Philippine diocese of Pagadian, who were killed at the height of the government´s anti-communist drive in the 1980s.
Also included in the list to the Vatican were naturalized Filipino Divine Word Bishop William Finneman of Germany, killed in 1942 during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, and Oblate Bishop Benjamin de Jesus of predominantly Muslim Jolo, whose 1997 murder remains unsolved.
The De La Salle group includes a Czechoslovakian, a Hungarian and 12 German and two Irish Brothers who were killed by fleeing Japanese soldiers near the end of World War II in 1945.
During the Japanese occupation they watched over what was then La Salle College in downtown Manila and died "because of their obedience to a direct command of their superior," De La Salle Provincial Brother Armin Luistro said.
The priests named include Jesuit Father Godofredo Alingal, whose 1981 assassination in his parish convent in the southern Philippine parish of Kibawe, Bukidnon, is believed to be linked to politicians threatened by his ministry of organizing poor communities.
Diocesan Father Dionisio Malalay of the southern Philippines´ Zamboanga del Sur was shot dead by the anti-communist Philippine Constabulary (PC, national police) while running a Bible sharing session in 1986.
Father Nerilito Sator of Bukidnon, also in the south, was a critic of illegal logging in his diocese. His 1989 ambush is believed to be linked to his role as a deputized forester in his province.
American Passionist Father Carl Schmitz´s killing in 1988 by a paramilitary man belonging to the indigenous B´laan tribe of the southern Philippines is also linked to large-scale loggers in the area.
Redemptorist Father Rosaleo Romano was listed as "martyred" on July 11, 1985, the date he was snatched off the streets of Cebu City in the central Philippines by the PC. The human rights activist´s body was never found.
In 1996, Jesuit scholastic Richard Fernando was killed in Cambodia as he tried to restrain a former soldier amputee who was threatening to lob a grenade at other students in the Jesuit vocational school for Khmer victims of landmines and polio.
Opus Dei Father Robert Latorre, Research Office director, said the CBCP conducted a second survey at the instruction in July of the Vatican, which noted that about 90 percent of the names the commission had received from all over the world referred to members of religious congregations.
The first list sent to the Vatican included the two bishops, two Religious priests, the De La Salle brothers and the Jesuit scholastic.
END
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