THE DIOCESE of Bacolod has strongly condemned the murder of a prominent businessman at the compound of one of its churches here on Tuesday night.
“It is a deplorable act,” Bishop Patricio Buzon said in a statement posted on the ADSUM Diocese of Bacolod Facebook page on Wednesday night.
The victim, Alex Yao, 57, was shot by an assassin inside the compound of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Shrine, also known as Redemptorist Church, on B.S. Aquino Drive around 8:30 p.m.
Yao, an owner of credit and currency exchange firms, and his wife, Ma. Theresa, were about to leave on board their vehicle after attending a mass of Bukas Loob sa Diyos, a Catholic charismatic community, when two men arrived on a motorcycle and one of them shot the businessman. His wife was injured in her left hand.
Buzon, who called on the government authorities to speedily act on the resolution of the case, said the incident is “an act of violence which has no place in Christian communities, more so, in (a) society that upholds the principles of law and order.”
“As such, we strongly condemn this killing as an act that is indicative of a complete disregard for the Christian and societal ideal we stand for — that any form of violence has no place in and outside our churches,” the bishop added.
Also on Wednesday, the Bacolod City Council passed a resolution condemning the killing of Yao and called on the Bacolod City Police Office to do all efforts to immediately solve the crime.(By Nanette Guadalquiver)
20
