The Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) said Thursday, March 11, that the climate of persecution and fear continued to persist.

"As we start to commemorate the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in this season of Lent, we also remember the climate of persecution Jesus experienced at the hands of the religious and political ruling elite of his time," the group said in a statement released Thursday, March 11.

"The same climate of persecution and fear persists in our time today," added RMP.

The group cited how over the past years, a number of their members were charged with various crimes including perjury, arson, kidnapping, robbery, and frustrated murder.

RMP also deplored the Philippine government’s freezing of their bank accounts.

"This persistent harassment sprang from continuous barrage of malicious allegations that there is 'probable cause' that RMP is involved in 'terrorism financing,'" said the group citing the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) freeze order on RMP accounts with the Bank of Philippine Islands.

RMP said in a resolution dated Dec. 26, 2019, the AMLC also ordered the bank to submit details of related bank accounts and proposed the filing of a petition before the Court of Appeals to extend the freeze order to six months.

The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 37 on Oct. 7, 2020, the group said, also issued an Asset Preservation Order against several bank accounts of the RMP over case violation of the Terrorism and Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012.

In the statement, the group denied any involvement in any form of financing terrorist persons or organizations.

RMP stressed that it has been at the forefront of serving rural poor communities in the country for 51 years.

"We have been living out our mission to collectively witness and act as Christ’s disciples with the rural poor, specifically with the poor farmers, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples and fisherfolks," the group said.

"We reiterate our position that donations and funding received by RMP are used to implement projects and programs to help the poor by providing the rural communities the help and services they deserve and that the government refuses to provide," RMP added.

The group believes the series of attacks against them and their members are connected to their work with the poor, marginalized, and oppressed sectors in society.

"What is evidently clear is that under the newly signed Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL), helping the poor and living out concretely our faith imperative and following the church mandate to build the Church of the Poor will put our liberty and life at risk," RMP said.

"This is verified by the wave of harassment and threats RMP members have experienced over the past years. Relentless red-tagging of church workers by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has become a prelude to illegal arrests and sometimes murder," added the group.

"Hence, we categorically proclaim that the ATL is inimical to democracy and in its most extreme can lead to warrantless arrests, detention without charges, torture, enforced disappearance and extra-judicial killings,"said RMP.

Still, RMP vowed to continue to fearlessly live out its commitment to be servant-leaders with the poor farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers, and Indigenous Peoples so that "all may truly experience God’s compassion and mercy in the here and now."

RMP is a mission partner of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP).