By ARTHA KIRA PAREDES
IN olden times, churches were considered sanctuaries where even criminals could seek refuge from harm and arrest.
That’s long in the past.
In fact, churches may be among the worst places to commit a crime these days, especially when a wedding is taking place.
On Dec. 16 five years ago, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in New Manila, Quezon City became the site of blood spill and murder.
Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin Jr. and his police security, Senior Police Officer 1 Adelfo Ortega, were gunned down in front of the church as they were about to board his Ford E-150.
Allan Sawadan, Bersamin’s driver, and Rolly Boy Labaja, an innocent bystander who made a living as a parking boy in the church compound, were also shot. Both lived but each sustained wounds as a result of the exchange of fire between the assailant, identified as Jerry Turqueza, and Bersamin’s brother and now incumbent Abra governor Eustaquio.
As if the choice of the scene for the double murder and double frustrated murder cases was not sacrilegious enough, the crimes took place as Bersamin’s niece, Pia Cristina Bersamin, and fellow lawyer Nino Delvin Embuscado received the sacrament of marriage.
Photos from the wedding would later show that just as the bride was about to enter the church door and her veil being straightened, the gunman, a young man in white shirt with blue sleeves, and a lookout were behind her. As she walked to her waiting groom, three more lookouts were scattered inside the church and also caught on lens.
These were the very same photos Task Force Bersamin, a police group in charge of the investigation, used to build a case against Valera. Through these photos witnesses were able to confirm the assailant and his accomplices.
Bersamin’s murder would be the second Abra political-related violence to take place in a church. The first was the killing of Tineg Mayor Clarence Benwaren in 2002.
Benwaren was killed inside the San Isidro Labrador Parish Church in Calaoan, Laguna while attending a wedding. The murder case, where Valera’s security was the primary suspect, was dismissed by the Branch 34 of the Calamba City Regional Trial Court late last year.
To this day, Bersamin’s four daughters—Rosario, Mary Anne, Michelle and Danielle—still cannot find the heart to go to Mount Carmel Church.
But according to his eldest grandson, John Bersamin, he and some of his cousins would visit the place, stand in front of the church gate and stare at the church grounds for hours. After all, they all called their grandfather “papa” instead of “lolo” and, according to John, losing him was like losing their own fathers.
Gunman Turqueza was never found and is still considered by police to be “at large.” Bersamin’s daughter Rosario, a provincial board member, suspects the gunman himself has been killed to ensure his silence.
It is not easy to comprehend why assassins would smear a place of worship in a country where 80 percent of its population is Roman Catholic. As difficult to comprehend is the fact that the alleged mastermind, former Abra Gov. Vicente Valera, is a former seminarian who comes from a family of devout Catholics.
(This story is part of the VERA Files project “Human Rights Case Watch” supported by The Asia Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.)
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