Speaking to the 8th Philippine General Synod on 2 May, the Church’s Prime Bishop, the Most Rev Edward Malecdan, argued the best way forward through the crisis of faith and order dividing Anglicans was to keep talking while taking no action that would cause irreparable harm to the fabric of the Communion.

“I think most of us know that there are problems besetting the Communion,” he observed, noting that “one of this is the practice of The Episcopal Church USA, or TEC, in consecrating practicing homosexuals and lesbians to the episcopate. The other is the acceptance of same-sex marriages in both TEC and in the Anglican Church of Canada or ACoC.”

The responses to these breaches of Communion by the US and Canada had led some provinces to call for the isolation of “these two North American Churches. They express in no uncertain terms that the Church in Canada and TEC should be out of the Communion.”

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The Episcopal Church of the Philippines has called for swift government action in prosecuting those responsible for the election-related massacre of 57 people in the Philippine province of Maguindanao on the southern island of Mindanao.

The murder of 57 people by gunmen was “totally unacceptable, unlawful, unjust, and inhuman,” the Bishop of the Diocese of the Southern Philippines said.

On Nov 23 a convoy of six vehicles left the town of Buluan proceeding to the provincial capital of Shariff Aguak. The vice-mayor of Buluan, Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu had invited 37 journalists to accompany his family and campaign workers to cover his filing of papers in the provincial capital to stand for election as governor.

Andal Ampatuan Jr, son of the outgoing governor, Andal Ampatuan Sr., and a candidate for election to his father’s post, allegedly threatened Mangudadatu — the scion of a rival political clan — with death if he contested the governor’s position. The presence of the journalists and his family, Mangudadatu believed, would prevent attempts at blocking the filing of candidacy papers.

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