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By Al Jacinto Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: The Philippine
military said it would try to convince Italian priest Giancarlo
Bossi to defer his missionary work in war-torn Mindanao.
Army Maj. Gen. Nehemias Pajarito,
commander of the First Infantry Division, on Wednesday disclosed
that they will talk to Bossi when he returns to Payao, Zamboanga
Sibugay province to convince him to postpone his priestly duties.
Bossi was kidnapped and later
freed by Muslim gunmen last year in Mindanao. A member of the
Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, he is expected to arrive
in Manila this week from Italy. ”I feel good and I am happy to go
back to my mission,” Bossi told the Catholic media AsiaNews in
Rome. Asianews said the priest left Italy on Tuesday night (Italy
time) on a flight to Manila.
“I will suggest to Father Bossi
to defer his plan [to resume his] missionary work until we are sure
that he will be safe in Payao when he returns. The kidnappers are
still at large, although police have filed criminal charges against
them, and we are concerned about his safety,” Pajarito told The
Manila Times.
Bossi was kidnapped June 10 last
year in Payao and freed more than a month later after private
negotiators allegedly paid a still undetermined amount of ransom.
He returned to Italy on August 10
shortly after his release from captivity and met with Pope Benedict
XVI at the Youth Agora in Loreto town.
Upon arrival In Manila, Bossi is
expected to meet with fellow priests before flying to Zamboanga
Sibugay. He had said he longs to return to Payao to continue his
missionary work there.
“I want to go back as soon as
possible to my parish in Payao, to my children. The poor need people
who can give them unlimited and unconditional love, and in Payao
people are poor,” he said. “While I was physically a prisoner,
too many people are imprisoned by poverty. And their captivity can
last a lifetime.”
Bossi is well respected and loved
by both Muslim and Christian villagers in Payao where a road was
named after him. He is widely known to help the poor and had taken
care of many children in the town.
“In Italy, I saw children look
at food and say ‘That’s yucky.’ In the Philippines I see kids
of the same age rummage through garbage and thank God when they
found something. There is something really wrong in this. We must go
back to values that afford life more humane conditions,” he said.
It will be the second time the
priest would return to Payao since his release from 39 days of
captivity from suspected renegade members of the rebel group Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Bossi returned to the town on July
25 last year to bid the villagers farewell before his trip back to
Italy.
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