Philippine**Tatay Pops is a victim of Aquino regime's Oplan Bayanihan -- CPP**

CPP Information Bureau

19 October 2011

**Tatay Pops is a victim of Aquino regime's Oplan Bayanihan -- CPP**

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today condemned "in the
strongest possible terms" the brutal killing of Father Fausto Tentorio
in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato on Monday by gunmen believed to
belong to a paramilitary unit under the Philippine Army's 73rd
Infantry Battalion.

"The revolutionary forces extend their condolences to the family of
Father Tenorio and to the people of Arakan who he selflessly served,"
said the CPP.

"Father Tentorio, endearly referred to as Tatay Pops, is the latest
victim of the continuing war of suppression of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) now named Oplan Bayanihan which targets people
actively engaged in mass struggles or supportive of people's
cause-oriented movements," said the CPP.

Father Tentorio was an Italian priest who headed the Mother of
Perpetual Help Parish in Arakan, Cotabato. A member of the Pontifical
Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME), he actively defended the rights
of the minority Manobo people and their struggle to claim their
ancestral land. He was vocal against the activities in Kulaman Valley
of foreign mining companies engaged in the extraction of nickel,
cobalt and chromium.

In 2003, he was threatened by armed men belonging to the Bagani
Command, a paramilitary group organized by the Philippine Army to stop
local residents from supporting and joining the New People's Army
(NPA).

"The campaign of extrajudicial killings continues under the Aquino
regime," said the CPP. "Aquino has given full rein to his military and
police forces to unleash an all-out war of suppression against the
people's mass struggles and armed revolution."

"Among the principal targets of the Aquino regime's war of suppression
are people actively opposed to mining operations," said the CPP. "In
line with its campaign to entice foreign mining companies to invest in
mining and plunder the country's remaining mineral resources, the
Aquino regime aims to silence opposition and suppress the resistance
of local residents."