Zamboanga (AsiaNews) – There is still no news regarding the plight of Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, PIME missionary kidnapped June 10th last as he made his way to celebrate mass in Payao, in the Southern Philippines. Despite various declarations made by Philippine politicians and the military, there is no confirmed information regarding the place where the priest is being held, or who his kidnappers are.
His fellow missionary brothers have opened a blog, a virtual diary on the internet, to keep track of developments in the case, as well as gather together messages and prayers which are arriving from across the world. Below we publish today’s update.
It’s raining in Zamboanga City. Reports, rather than bringing relief, bring only sad confusion. Days ago the military said that Giancarlo would have been released by the days end, then in 24 hours, then 48 and now in 72. Days ago, various agents of the shadowy yet trustworthy secret service told us that Giancarlo was being held in the area of Sibuguey.
Then he was no longer there, but near Lanao del Norte (300 kilometres east); then reports placed him on Basilan island (300 kilometres West). It’s like shooting at the breeze. The truth is lost on the face of the map.
Yesterday the Italian ambassador Rubens Anna Fedele came to be with us, PIME missionaries, on his way from Manila to Payao. We thanked him for what he is doing. Fr. Gianni Sandalo’s visit to the site of the crime together with other, has conformed that those who kidnapped Father Giancarlo, those who carried out the dirty work of physically taking him, are people linked to the local criminal underworld, perhaps even hired by others who are from the shadows protecting who knows what to exploit the hostage.
Those shadows are probably uninterested in who Giancarlo is, the names of his parents, who his brother and sister are, his nieces and nephews, friends, companions. He is a mere hostage robbed from the community, to be bartered or traded with the same community: but if only they would begin to negotiate. They haven’t so far. They have made no contact whatsoever and the reasons for the abduction remain completely unknown.
In the Philippines there are 27 million mobile phones and not one of these has been used to send a simple text message to say that Father Giancarlo is well. Milf [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] have a large network of informers in the field, but not a single piece of news, nothing belonging to Giancarlo has passed into there hands to date.
In the meantime he remains an anonymous hostage lost in the confusion of information, but at the same time he is someone who we know well, who is fighting to survive in this strange land, adapting himself to these rains, which drench him as well as his abductors.