BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – A convert to Islam who claimed he was ordered by Allah confessed to destroying antique statues of angels and saints in front of shocked Churchgoers after literally crashing Holy Mass with his tricycle and as police were on patrol nearby.
The morning spectacle at the San Isidro Labrador Church happened as parish priest Leopoldo Cahilig waa hearing mass and as a group of policemen was doing a visibility patrol just across the street in the usually sleepy town more than an hour’s drive south from here.
Town deputy police chief, Lieutenant Glenn Purtunes told DNX Rolly Semira, 39, suddenly attacked the images of Saint Joseph and San Isidro Labrador, and two angels when his his tricycle flipped after crashing into the pews.
Purtunes said Semira was shouting that men must not worship idols as he was engaging in what looked like hand-to-hand combat with the statues.
He added Semira, 39, from San Teodoro village, is a convert to Islam or Balik Islam, a fact admitted to him by local Muslim leaders who said Semira is part of their congregation.
The family of Semira told Purtunes he is suffering from a nervous breakdown but the police official said Semira was able to answer his questions and knows his age and address.
The attack on the saints came today shortly after the Lenten Season of the Christisan world and in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan being narked by the Islam faith.
Purtunes said Cahilig plans to file charges for malicious mischief and alarm and scandal against Semira but cannot give an estimate yet on the destroyed statues that are date back to hundreds of years ago.
