PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 19, 2012) – Philippine authorities are investigating the death of an Australian priest who was found floating in a river in the central Filipino province of Cebu.
Police on Wednesday said Father Douglas Leslie Rowe, 69, was found dead in the village called Can-asuhan in Carcar City after inspecting a parcel of land on Monday with two Filipino companions – Sister Jan Rebutaso and real estate broker Sunshine Hoyo.
Rowe told his companions to take pictures of the land and left him near the river and when the women returned they saw the priest’s body already floating in the river, police said.
“Father Rowe told the two women to take a picture of the land and when they returned they saw the body of the priest floating in the river. His undergarments were below his knees,” Police Officer 2 Vicente Garces, Jr. told the Mindanao Examiner, citing the report taken by investigators from Rebutaso and Hoyo.
“The two women rushed Rowe to the hospital, but doctors pronounced him dead on arrival,” Garces said.
He said police are investigating Rowe’s death and could not say if the priest, who was from Midland, a suburb in Perth in Western Australia, was murdered or not until the autopsy results are made available by forensic experts.
But Garces said the two women claimed the priest was suffering from a heart disease and hypertensive and diabetic. “They say Fr. Rowe was suffering from diseases, you know high blood pressure, heart ailment and was also diabetic and could have suffered a heart attack or stroke while relieving in the river. We still don’t know. There is an ongoing investigation,” he said.
He said Rowe, a Jesuit priest, was the founder of the Patrist Society of the Sons and Daughters of God the Father in Australia and had put up churches in Cebu City and in Meru in Kenya.
Rowe specialized in spiritual ministries conducting retreats to sisters, priests and bishops for several years and author of several books and booklets, and an accomplished Jazz and Classical musician. (Mindanao Examiner)
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