Unidentified gunmen killed Fr Richmond Nilo, of the Diocese of Cabanatuan, as he was about to start Mass in a chapel in Mayamot, Nueva Ecija. Father Richmond Nilo was behind the altar of the Nuestra Senora de la Nieve Chapel in Zaragoza town in Nueva Ecija province, 96 kilometres north of Manila, when he was shot dead on June 10 evening. Two unidentified gunmen shot the priest through a window four times, according to an initial police investigation. The initial investigation indicates the assassins shot four times through a window fatally wounding the clergyman before fleeing on a car.
As reported by mattersindia.com, CBCP President Archbishop Romulo Valles said, “I am deeply sad and bothered because we may note that Father Nilo is the third priest to be killed in these recent months.” Fr Giovanni Re, a missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in the Philippines said, “”We are not afraid. The mission goes on.”
Nilo was the third Catholic priest to have been killed in the Philippines since December 2017, according to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). National police chief Oscar Albayalde condemned the killings but stressed that the cases were not related to each other and did not represent a pattern of attacks against Catholic priests in the Philippines.
