Caloocan City bishop Virgilio David Thursday smacked what he called “death squads” in his jurisdiction where two cases of murder were recorded the night before.
In his homily the morning after, he identified the victims as Jennifer Taburada, 27, killed by masked men at 8 pm on Wednesday.
Taburada was a widow whose husband, Ryan, was also murdered by unidentified killers a year ago. Their children aged 11 and 13, Prince Junior and Princess, “are complete orphans” now.
More than three hours after Jennifer’s murder, 36-year-old Alvin Teng was killed only a few blocks away.
David said: “You know, the killers were not even rushing. They took their sweet time. We used to call them bonnet gangs. Now we just call them what they really are—death squads.”
“The police seemed to be alerted about their presence because they’re not supposed to meddle. If the police wanted to pursue them, they could have, because they stayed [there] for four hours,” David said.
“And after killing Jennifer, they just moved a few blocks and killed another one. Jennifer was from Barangay 152 in Bagong Barrio. By 11:30 pm, they killed Alvin Teng, 36 years old. I feel so, so, so, so sad, that I am not able to protect my flock from the wolves!” he added.
David narrated these murders in his homily on the second day of the 5th Philippine Conference on New Evangelization at the pontifical University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
Many participants at PCNE were seen wiping their tears as David delivered his homily.
More than 2,000 priests and nuns gathered at UST’s Quadricentennial Pavilion for PCNE.
David, one of the Philippines’ leading Bible scholars, is vice president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
He is among the most vocal against the killings under the Duterte administration.
In his homily, David said he learned of Taburada’s murder while he was preparing his homily for Thursday’s Mass.
He was informed through a text message of a person in the widow’s support group in his diocese.
“The texter was telling me that the killers were still around that very moment while she was texting me. They were still looking up close to check if Jennifer was really dead already, and they had to fire a few more shots,” David recalled.
David’s tipster then sent him “a picture of this 27-year-old mother of two children, sprawled, bloody, on cold pavement.”
“And I recognized her immediately, Jennifer. She was one of the widows who applied for a scholarship for her son, Prince Junior, just a few months ago, and it broke my heart to tell her that we took only one scholar per family. She was trying to get two slots for her two children,” David said.
He said he remembered how Taburada, in one instance, “was clutching in her armpit the death certificate of her husband, Ryan, who had also been killed by masked killers a year ago now.”
“I remember how she narrated her husband’s death, how Ryan was mutilated by the killers. He had to be abducted and tortured first. They gouged his eyes and cut off his private parts,” David recounted.
“I remember how I squirmed as she was telling the story, and I whispered to her and I said, your daughter is listening. And she had to wipe her tears and control herself from being too graphic in the description,” he said.
“Now her two little children [aged 11 and 13], named Princess and Prince Junior, are complete orphans,” the bishop added.
