A MEMORIAL FOR EDISON LAPUZ

Rev. Edison C. Lapuz was brutally assassinated on the evening of May 12, 2005. The whole United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) is horrified that a respected pastor and church leader, an ardent supporter of the poor and oppressed, who at the time of his murder was serving as Conference Minister of the North Eastern Leyte Conference of the UCCP became the target of State persecution. Rev. Lapuz was loved and respected by his colleagues, parishioners, and the communities where he served. His slaying has proclaimed him a prophet and a martyr.
Rev. Lapuz was calculatingly outspoken, unflinching, principled, and yet, a humble man. His words against corruption in the government, exploitation by the rich and big business, impending environmental degradation and displacement of those economically poor by large-scale mines, the government’s agrarian reform program that is not redistributing land to the landless tillers, and most recently, summary executions and State repression in Samar and Leyte earned him the ire of evil. Edison’s body was destroyed by henchmen’s bullets, but his spirit lives on in the work of God’s people.

“Why Must There Be Sacrifices?”

Why must there be human sacrifices? Whether we understand the present phenomenon of war and violence in the world today in the moral ethical perspective or not, we are convinced that human life should never be sacrificed for whatever purpose on earth or heaven.

Our lectionary text in Genesis 22: 1-14 is a story of an attempted human sacrifice—Abraham was summoned by Yahweh to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice. The story is a tribal legend and as its stands now Abraham and Isaac are mere supporting actors to the central actor who is Yahweh. It emphasizes three fundamental elements of Israel’s tradition: revelation of the divine will and purpose by means of an epiphany; the trust and obedience of the patriarch as the representative of the whole people of God, and the provision of the ritual needs for true worship. There is an anthropological necessity in the practice of human sacrifice in which tribes had receive revelation of the divine or were practiced as a means of resolving conflicts. In the Genesis story of Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice to Yahweh, human sacrifice has come to an end, because God decided to have a ram instead of Isaac. The very objective of the human sacrifice was to test the faith and obedience of Abraham and he finally passed it.

In our contemporary times human sacrifice has not ended or eradicated. The recent developments in the Philippines where priests, pastors, lawyers and journalists were killed in the name of national security—or in the name of a “strong republic” shows that human persons are sacrificed for the interest of government. The political killings in the Philippines must be put to a stop. A government that kills people will not stand the test of genuine democracy, more so of the quality of life, liberty and equality. The present government under President Arroyo due to its inability to alleviate the plight of the poor and its preoccupation of gaining more wealth for itself, not to mention the election fraud and other anomalies in governance is now on its collapse.
Organized people’s movements and even the professional and middle class sectors have called for the ouster of President Arroyo. We anticipate that soon the death of prophets like Rev. Lapuz will be vindicated in the downfall of this unfit regime in the country. Migrant workers and all expatriates can work and pray for new economic and political systems in the Philippines.**