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February 3, 1997, Seattle Times / AP, Bishop Killed In Manila, by Jim Gomez,

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Bishop Benjamin de Jesus

February 3, 1997, Seattle Times / AP, Bishop Killed In Manila, by Jim Gomez,

MANILA - Attackers opened fire today on a Roman Catholic bishop walking outside his cathedral, killing him and a bystander and wounding five others, police said.

Bishop Benjamin de Jesus, 56, was shot six times in the head and body by two attackers.

One of them was a boy between the ages of 10 and 15, said Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines.

The shooting happened in Jolo, a Muslim-dominated town in the Sulu province about 580 miles south of Manila.

The area is considered a "no man's land" where Muslim rebels control large areas and children carry guns.

Church officials said the killing took place amid increasing tensions caused by fundameltalist Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels.

The hard-line guerrillas continue to fight in the surrounding area even though the main Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace accord with the government in September.

De Jesus was the highest church official to be killed in the Philippines in recent history, a church spokesman said.

The Abu Sayyaf has carried out numerous attacks against Christians, including the 1994 kidnapping in Jolo of the Rev. Clarence Bertelsman, an American priest from Belleville, Ill. He was later freed.

De Jesus had warned then that the kidnapping was an attempt by Islamic extremists to drive Christian clerics from Muslim areas of this predominately Roman Catholic country.

The bishops conference said today that they would not be intimidated by the murder into recalling the 10 priests still in the area.

Authorities said a security guard at Mount Carmel Cathedral returned fire but the attackers fled in a van driven by a third person.

Their identities and motive were unknown.

Police provincial director Charlemagne Alejandrino said the pedestrian killed was a woman, and that one of the five injured by stray bullets was a 9-month-old infant.

Father Phil Estrella, a senior official of the religious congregation to which de Jesus belonged, said the bishop normally traveled with two Marine escorts after several churchmen received threats from extremist groups that they would be killed or kidnapped.

But today, he was without the escorts, Estrella said by telephone.

Information from Reuters is included in this report.

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