Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, deaconesses, nun, bishops and lay workers have called for the acquittal of journalists French Mae Cumpio, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) lay worker Marielle Domequil and three others comprising the Tacloban 5 who have been charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives after state agents arrested them on Feb. 7, 2020 in Tacloban City.
In a statement issued on May 5, 2025, the group of 70 clergymen and religious workers said “We stand as light! The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5.) As we look back on these past five years of detention for RMP lay worker Marielle Domequil and journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, we reflect soberly that their arrest on Feb. 7, 2020 in one-night, simultaneous raids in Tacloban City was simply another case of the Duterte administration’s crackdown on democratic space.”
Leading the 70 signatories are the Most Rev. Gerardo A. Alminaza, D.D., Bishop, Diocese of San Carlos, Most Rev. Eugenius L Cañete, MJ, DD, Bishop, Diocese of Gumaca, Most Rev. Rhee Timbang, former Obispo Maximo, Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), Rt. Rev. Dindo Ranojo, IFI General Secretary, Fr. Angel Cortez, OFM, Conference of Major Superiors in the Philippines, Sr. Cecilia Espenilla, Prioress General, Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, Sr. Jocelyn Widwid, OSA, General Councilor, Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation, Deaconess Norma P. Dollaga, Kasimbayan, Deaconess Sheila Faye Binuya of the United Methodist Church, Rev. Callum Tabada, United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and Rev. Homar Distajo, UCCP.
The signatories decried the injustice done to the accused. “The supposed evidence confiscated against the five activists (most young and each of them grassroots leaders) fits a proforma narrative, often accompanied by evidence planting and fabricated testimonies. Not only is the authenticity of the alleged confiscations suspicious, five years past now brings into focus and impels reflection on the conduct of state forces, who followed a president now detained at The Hague for his trial on crimes against humanity,” the statement stressed.
“We, concerned Church people and human rights advocates, stand with RMP lay worker Marielle Domequil and the others of the Tacloban 5 and express our disbelief in the prosecution’s narrative of their arrest. It is high time that we disabuse our judicial system of dubious proforma night-time raids and non-bailable charges of illegal possession of explosives against activists and community workers. It strains logical thinking and merely appeals to belief in whatever authorities claim that Marielle, a lay missionary, would be possessing explosives,” it added. Marielle testified to this on April 14, 2025. She choked down tears, saying, “Frenchie is a journalist, and I am a lay community worker. We have no need of guns and ammunition.”
“As the wheels of justice turn slowly, the vantage of time lends clarity. Marielle and the Tacloban 5 have already been deprived of five years of joyful service. The court’s responsibility for fairness and impartiality will see the process to judgment. In the meantime, we stand as light and amplify the testimony of lay missionary Marielle Domequil. We pray for the swift resolution of this case and acquittal of the Tacloban 5, with God’s help,” the statement concluded. It argued that serving the poor is not a crime and neither is Cumpio’s reporting the truth through broadcast and print an offense against the right of the people to information.
Consistent with her earlier statements, Cumpio testified that her captors planted pieces of evidence during the raid to ensure that she and others would be charged with non-bailable offenses. Moreover, her arrest came amid the intensified crackdown of rural communities in Eastern Visayas, Negros Island and in the Bicol region following the issuance of Memorandum Circular No. 32 (MC 32), which deployed thousands of soldiers and police commandos to attack alleged mass bases of the New People’s Army (NPA.) MC 32 was issued by unlamented ex-president Rodrigo Duterte in 2018 alongside Executive Order No. 70, which created the despised National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ElCAC), which is the principal red-tagging machinery of the Duterte and Marcos Jr. regimes.
The planting of evidence is a notorious vice of the Philippine government, which was denounced by lawyers for submitting “walking skeletons” in court to “prove” that “killing fields” existed in Leyte. Worse, the same sets of skeletons were also cited as evidence of another mass grave, only to be flubbed by witnesses who said the purported “mass grave” was a traditional upland burial ground. To make its clumsiness world-class, government also submitted firearms with the same serial numbers in many cases of “nanlaban” incidents during the Duterte “war on drugs,” proving to all and sundry that the pieces of evidence were fabricated, thus weakening or destroying their own defense. In the cases of Cumpio and Domequil, as well as three others in the Tacloban 5, what they committed was “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” or “false in one thing, false in everything.” (DIEGO MORRA)
