BACOLOD CITY -- The Diocese of San Carlos in Negros Occidental has joined the call for justice for Escalante City Councilor Bernardino Patigas Sr., who gunned down on his way home from a campaign rally on Monday afternoon.
“Our Catholic community calls for justice for the death of Bernardo ‘Toto’ Patigas Sr. We pray for the soul of ‘Tay Toto and for the end of killings,” Bishop Gerardo Alminaza said in a statement released on Thursday.
“In sadness, we all are crying out: End the killings! These barbaric and calculated assassinations must end! We must not tolerate this kind of crime,” he added.
Alminaza said Patigas, a survivor of the Escalante massacre in 1985, was a dedicated human rights worker and a devoted church worker, who was a mission partner of the Carmelites in Escalante City, and president of the Parish Pastoral Council of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Old Escalante.
“His dedication to social justice is highly commendable as he selflessly gave his life serving the oppressed and exploited sugarcane workers of Negros Island,” the bishop said.
Patigas was killed in front of a high school in Barangay Alimango by a motorcycle-riding man, who tailed him from the city proper. He was shot three times, twice on the head, and died immediately.
Capt. Ronald Santillan, deputy police chief of Escalante City, said in a radio interview on Thursday the Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Patigas has been formed by the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Police to pursue the case.
He added that when the SITG was convened on Wednesday, investigators agreed to focus on the “personal angle”, considering that the victim had some misunderstanding with certain people.
“Based on our investigation, we have also identified a ‘person of interest’,” Santillan said. (PNA)
