PHILIPPINES
Manila Bulletin
By PHOEBE JEN INDINO
September 26, 2012, 6:33pm
ARCHBISHOP PALACE, Cebu City – The Catholic Church Wednesday expressed full support for the ban on ivory but sought a fair and just hearing for a bishop linked to alleged smuggling of ivory.
Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, in a press conference yesterday, stressed that the Catholic Church supports the ban on ivory as it is consistent with the doctrine on stewardship of creation, and the Church respects the laws of the land.
Ivory is considered a by-product or derivative from elephant tusk but its collection is one of the illegal acts identified in Republic Act 9147 or Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.
“The Church does not condone ivory smuggling or other illegal activities, although in the past, ivory was one of the materials used in the adornment of liturgical worship,” he said. …
“He gave me phone numbers and locations. If I wanted to smuggle an icon that was too large to hide in my suitcase, I might get a certificate from the National Museum of the Philippines declaring my image to be antique, or I could get a carver to issue a paper declaring it to be imitation or alter the carving date to before the ivory ban,” Christy narrated in his article, referring to his conversations with Garcia.
In the same article Christy described Garcia as a fleshy man with a lazy left eye and bad knees where in the mid-1980s, according to a 2005 report in the Dallas Morning News and a related lawsuit, Garcia, while serving as a priest at St. Dominic’s of Los Angeles, California, sexually abused an altar boy in his early teens and was dismissed.
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