Priest shot dead
Priest shot dead | Sun.Star Network Online
FOR what may be his refusal to hand over his cellular phones to roadside robbers, a priest on his way to visit his sister in Cansojong, Talisay City was shot three times in a dimly lit portion of the Cebu South Coastal Road past 8 o’clock last night.
Fr. Jovencio Rabusa, 46, died at the Talisay District Hospital some 15 minutes after he was rushed there by policemen who responded to the shooting alert. He was a member of the team ministry in Naga and was once the parish priest of Santander town.
The robbers took away his two cellular phones, which were the old and cheap Nokia models, but did not take his wallet and wrist watch.
The priest was casually attired in green shirt and cargo shorts in camouflage design.
He was off from his parish work in Naga on Mondays. As he was wont to do on his dayoff, he visited his younger sister Susan Zaragosa in nearby Talisay. Only this time, he did not reach his sister’s house.
Talisay police have yet to identify and catch the killers at press time. Mayor Socrates Fernandez ordered police chief Supt. Henry Binas to work on the case at once.
Fellow priests, who rushed to the hospital upon learning of what happened, condemned the attack. They also informed Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, who is in Manila, of it.
Msgr. Esteban Binghay, episcopal vicar, said, “We condemn the killing because life is precious and it belongs to God. We pray for the surrender of the perpetrators to give justice to (Fr. Rabusa) and for them to repair their sins.”
“One this certain is that times are hard because of moral degradation,” Binghay told reporters at the Talisay District Hospital.
Rabusa was not the first priest who was shot for refusing to hand over a cellphone to a robber. In 2004, Fr. Mhar Balili was held up for his phone by two men aboard a motorcycle while walking towards the Archbishop Palace in Cebu City one early morning. When he hesitated to give it, they shot him in his right palm.
Talisay police investigator PO2 Lino Diez said that they have yet to ascertain the motive of Rabusa’s killing but the information they had at the moment leaned towards robbery.
Zaragosa said her brother had texted her at 7:42 p.m. that he was now near Gaisano Grand Fiesta Mall in Tabunok where he would get off if he was taking the jeepney.
He had informed her that he was going to have dinner in her place.
A brother would usually drive for Rabusa and when the brother wasn’t available, the priest would commute. The brother had gone to their hometown in Badian and wasn’t available yesterday.
Zaragosa said Rabusa would have observed his usual route when he took the public transport yesterday. He would have taken the jeepney from Naga to Talisay, which is just a short trip, and gotten off at the Gaisano mall along the main highway and transferred to a trisikad in going to Cansojong.
Cansojong is an interior barangay that covers part of the Talisay side of the Cebu South Coastal Road.
Zaragosa said her priest brother would usually get off a few meters from the subdivision where she lives and then walk towards her house. It was probably on this part that he was held up.
He would walk in the area at any time of the day or night and had not encountered any untoward incident until last night, she said.
Details pieced together but which police have yet to verify revealed that the robbers saw the priest walking and accosted him toward a dimly lit area. The robbery and shooting occurred near a gasoline station along the South Coastal Road.
The priest, who was tall and hefty and not easily intimidated, could have fought off the robbers who then shot him. Some accounts said the holduppers fled on foot and others said they were riding a motorcycle.
Rabusa had gunshot wounds on his nape, left arm and lower back.
Talisay police have yet to know the type of gun used.
At the hospital last night, priests and family members were still talking about where to bring Rabusa’s body—to his parish in Naga or to his hometown in Badian.
To his fellow priests, Rabusa was known to be a comic and had always ready for something funny to share with those around him. But to some altar boys at the Santander church where Rabusa served as parish priest in 2000-2006, he was ill-tempered and was quick to hit them for minor offenses.
The altar boys had reported the abuses, which they said were both physical and sexual, to the media. Rabusa had denied the allegations leveled against him, saying the boys misread his actions.
Priest shot dead
Originally Posted by m_a_r_k_u_z
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