An American missionary priest narrates his experiences of human tragedy and political deception, while serving as a parish priest in a logging community of 4,500 people, situated along the verdant, southwestern coastal plain of the Celebes Sea in Mindanao, Philippines. A previously peaceful and idyllic Christian town is abruptly torn apart with the senseless murders of its citizens by a group of armed Muslim rebels belonging to the MNLF (Mindanao National Liberation Front). This fact-based account describes the incidents that led up to the massacres and the continuing slaughter that spiraled…mehr
An American missionary priest narrates his experiences of human tragedy and political deception, while serving as a parish priest in a logging community of 4,500 people, situated along the verdant, southwestern coastal plain of the Celebes Sea in Mindanao, Philippines. A previously peaceful and idyllic Christian town is abruptly torn apart with the senseless murders of its citizens by a group of armed Muslim rebels belonging to the MNLF (Mindanao National Liberation Front). This fact-based account describes the incidents that led up to the massacres and the continuing slaughter that spiraled out of control, when elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines came to the defense of the town and in the process retaliated against the neighboring Muslim communities. Hundreds of Muslim men were mindlessly slaughtered in retaliation. These events during the civil conflicts of 1974 exacted a heavy toll upon both communities.
Arthur E. Amaral, originally from Boston, Massachusetts, has lived in New Jersey for the past thirty nine years with his wife and five children. Ordained to the priesthood in 1964, Rev. Amaral was assigned to the Philippines where he successfully worked as a missionary for more than ten years. He resigned from his duties as a priest and returned to the United States to begin employment in a New Jersey Youth Correctional Facility where he spent the next 26 years, developing programs of treatment for inmates and serving as Director of Policy and Planning. Upon retirement, Arthur volunteered his services as substitute teacher at the local Middle and High School Facilities. This lasted for two years until the demands of family care-giving became critical. During this time, he began working on a manuscript of his memoirs, three years after retirement, publishing his first book entitled, "On the Palms of My Hands" on February 8, 2007. The book awakened the memories of former residents of the logging town about whom he wrote. Most of the residents had to abandon their home town for safety and settle elsewhere in the Philippines during the civil war conflicts of 1974-76. However, the sons and daughters of the displaced loggers were able to continue their education and successfully live in other cities of the Philippines and on every continent. Reunions began to spring up all over the world in which the former residents found themselves. A new found joy and pride in the place they called home, gave rise to a new sense of their community with each other and their desire to visit once again this special place. The author himself made the journey back to this fabled town over a year ago, on April 10, 2014. And so arose the need to continue the story of this special community and to find out "whatever happened to..." Yes! This time there is a hope of a happy ending.
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