WCC NEWS: Violence in a Philippine village: one family’s story

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World Council of Churches - News

VIOLENCE IN A PHILIPPINE VILLAGE: ONE FAMILY’S STORY

For immediate release: 15 December 2010

By Aneth Lwakatare (*)

“May 2010 is when it all started", Yna (not her real name), mother of
17-year-old Yuri, told a group of international church 
representatives who
had come to the Philippines in early December in order to review the 
human
rights situation there. "A group of military men were sent to live in 
our
village and to observe the general election that was to take place. 
They
did not leave even after the election was over. We knew why they 
stayed:
they wanted to recruit minors into the army.”

“My husband and I would not agree to send our son to the military. 
Yuri
did not want to be part of it. The military started threatening us, 
and we
experienced all kinds of harassment. They even summoned my 11-year-old
son,” Yna continued.

She said that the situation worsened on 28 August. Her son was 
invited to a
youth celebration in the village that was organized by the military. 
At
the end of the celebration her son was accused of sexual harassment 
after
he entered a female comfort room without realizing it. There was no
witness to the alleged sexual harassment, and the supposed victim did 
not
claim to have been harassed.

This did not protect her son from being beaten severely by soldiers 
who
even threatened to kill him if he told anyone what had happened to 
him.
“My son arrived home crying and suffering from the pain that had been
inflicted on his body,” Yna explained. He had been brought home by two
village watchmen.

Out of fear for the safety of his family, Yuri did not tell his story 
to
anyone for three days. It took him time to open up and share what had
happened to him. His physical wounds did not heal quickly, but they 
did
heal with time.

“Wounds were not the only evidence left by the violence Yuri had
experienced. His behaviour began to change, and he became a violent
child,” Yna testified mournfully. “It reached a point when he even
threatened to kill me. Yuri was no longer the son I had raised.”

With the help of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines 
and
the human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of
People’s Rights) (Link: 
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=0bb20455737a330af76c ), the 
family
managed to bring Yuri to a hospital for a psychological check-up. The
diagnosis was that he was suffering from a mental condition. Yuri was 
sent
to a private mental health hospital where he stayed for some time.

Yna found that her son was in a much better state when he returned 
from the
hospital, but the medicine that the doctors had prescribed for him 
was too
expensive for the family to afford. His mental health began to 
deteriorate
once more.

Yna and her immediate family have now moved to Manila as they are no 
longer
safe in their former home. She is told that members of the military 
still
harass and threaten other family members in the village, demanding to 
know
where Yuri and his family have moved.

"I never thought of moving to Manila, but with this situation we had 
no
choice,” said Yna. She added that being in Manila does not make her 
stop
worrying. “We are longing for the day when we will feel safe again," 
she
concluded.

The group of Christians from Asia, Africa, Europe, Canada and 
Australia had
come to the Philippines as "Living Letters" on behalf of the World 
Council
of Churches (WCC) in order to learn about the current human right
situation and about the churches' advocacy against violence.

This Living Letters visit was one in a series of visits by ecumenical 
teams
during the past three years to various countries, organized ahead of 
the
International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC), May 2011 in 
Jamaica.
The visits are meant to accompany churches who long for peace, 
security
and reconciliation in the midst of conflicts and violence.

(*) Aneth Lwakatare is a WCC communications department intern from
Tanzania.

More information on the Living Letters visit (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5cfd4e22a6b74216cca0 ) to the 
Philippines

WCC member churches in the Philippines (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=ef837453330f6fae1b83 )


The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, 
witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship 
of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 
Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 
million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the 
Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse 
Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, 
Switzerland.



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