Peace Corps Online: July 3, 2003 - The Manila Bulletin Online: Obituary for Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich who helped negotiate release of PCV Timothy Swanson in Philippines

July 3, 2003 - The Manila Bulletin Online: Obituary for Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich who helped negotiate release of PCV Timothy Swanson in Philippines

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Philippines: Peace Corps Philippines: The Peace Corps in the Philippines: July 3, 2003 - The Manila Bulletin Online: Obituary for Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich who helped negotiate release of PCV Timothy Swanson in Philippines

By Admin1 (admin) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 1:20 pm: Edit Post

Obituary for Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich who helped negotiate release of PCV Timothy Swanson in Philippines

Read and comment on this excerpt from a story from The Manila Bulletin Online on the death of Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich. In 1990, Fortich helped negotiate the release of a Japanese farm technician, Fumio Mizuno, and an American Peace Corps volunteer, Timothy Swanson, who were captured by communist guerrillas on Negros. During the release, Fortich brought a basket of eggs for the Marxists up a mountain, a custom he had done every time hostages were freed by the rebels through his intercession. Read the story at:

Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich dies at age 89*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.

Retired Bacolod Bishop Fortich dies at age 89

By Leslie Ann G. Aquino

BACOLOD (AP) - Retired Roman Catholic Bishop Antonio Fortich of the Philippines, a staunch opponent of late President Ferdinand Marcos and a fighter for social change, died Wednesday after a long bout with diabetes. He was 89.

Doctors at the Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod City said Fortich died from multiple organ failure caused by diabetes. He had been in the hospital since April 28.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called Fortich "a champion of the poor and the oppressed, a courageous vanguard of peace and justice."

Fortich became bishop of Bacolod in 1967 in the midst of workers' unrest against globe-trotting sugar barons on Negros island.

In 1973, Fortich received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for being a "prime mover of social change" in the province.

"Deeply rooted in local conditions, he sought a just society of recognized rights and responsibilities, prodding planters and centrals (sugar mills), priests, politicians and the less privileged to cooperate in meeting glaring needs," the award said.

The award came a year after Marcos imposed nationwide martial law and started ruling by decree. A popular revolt ousted the dictator in 1986, and he died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.

During Marcos' rule, Fortich became a vocal critic of the military's abuses and human rights violations while supporting land reform on central Negros island, which was a hotbed of communist insurgency.

He helped ease the plight of hundreds of Negros villagers displaced by military offensives in the 1980s against the guerrillas by allowing them to take shelter and bring their dead to his church.

After Marcos was toppled, his successor Corazon Aquino opened peace talks with the underground Marxist umbrella group, the National Democratic Front.

Fortich was chosen by both sides to head a committee monitoring a 60-day nationwide ceasefire until Feb. 8, 1987. During the cease-fire, he criticized military officials for blaming rebels for violations without sufficient evidence and also spoke against killings by the communist New People's Army.

Fortich, whose personal contacts with the rebels earned him the disdain of conservatives in and out of the church, had said that many of the rebels remained Christian despite communism's rejection of the faith. Three priests from his diocese had joined the rebels.

One of them, Luis Jalandoni, is the chief rebel peace negotiator in on-and-off talks with the government since 1986. Jalandoni, who has left the priesthood and lives in exile in the Dutch city of Utrecht, was the first head of a social action center established by Fortich.

Former priest Frank Fernandez now heads the rebel movement on Negros.

Critics accused Fortich of being pro-communist. One group calling itself Christians Against Communist tossed a grenade at his home in Bacolod in April 1987, but he escaped injury. He also escaped an earlier attack by unidentified men who torched his residence while he was away.

In 1990, Fortich helped negotiate the release of a Japanese farm technician, Fumio Mizuno, and an American Peace Corps volunteer, Timothy Swanson, who were captured by communist guerrillas on Negros. During the release, Fortich brought a basket of eggs for the Marxists up a mountain, a custom he had done every time hostages were freed by the rebels through his intercession.

Fortich retired at age 75 in 1989. The diocesan vicar general, Msgr. Victorino Rivas, who was at Fortich's side when he died, announced funeral services will be held on July 15.

More about the Kidnapping of Timothy Swanson

Read more about the Kidnapping of Timothy Swanson in this excerpt from a story from "Human Rights Watch" on Human Rights Developments in the Philippines at:

Human Rights Development in the Philippines

The NPA engaged in its share of abuses. Many of the assassinations carried out by its hit squads, the so-called "sparrow units," were not legitimate military targets by the terms of international law. On June 5, for example, retired Col. Laudemar Kahulugan, the security chief of Purefoods, Inc, in Quezon City, Manila, was shot and killed on his way to work by a sparrow unit. Col. Kahulugan had been the Philippines Constabulary chief in Davao City between 1984 and 1986 at a time when the NPA there was successfully infiltrated by the military.

US soldiers and workers at the six US military installations in the Philippines became NPA targets as well, again in violation of international law since the US is not a direct party to the hostilities. On May 13, two US servicemen were shot dead in Angeles City, near Clark Air Base, the night before bilateral negotiations on the future of the US bases were to begin.

Although hostage-taking is also specifically prohibited by the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the NPA continued to abduct civilians and military personnel alike. NPA guerrillas kidnapped a Japanese aid worker on May 29 and US Peace Corps volunteer Timothy Swanson on June 13; both were released unharmed on August 2. The NPA said Mizuno's abduction was a warning to Japan, apparently to discourage it from providing aid to the Philippines government. The aim of the Swanson abduction was not clear, although it may have been the removal of the Peace Corps, which the NPA characterized as "an instrument of the Central Intelligence Agency to support counterinsurgency in the Philippines." All Peace Corps volunteers did in fact pull out of the Philippines following the abduction.

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7/2/03

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