The global ecumenical family's concern about the growing human rights violations in the Philippines will be a major focus of the 18-21 November visit to the country by the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev Dr Samuel Kobia.

During his four-day visit, Kobia will meet victims of human rights violations, including families of victims of enforced disappearances or extrajudicial executions.

He will also meet representatives of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, and heads of WCC member and non-member churches, and engage in dialogue with the Catholic Bishops Conference.

On Sunday 18, at the Iglesia Filipina Independiente Kobia will deliver the commemorative sermon for the late Most Rev Alberto Ramento, who was brutally slain in October 2006.

The following Tuesday, he will deliver the Gumersindo Garcia Memorial Lecture, which is organised by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) in honour of a late ecumenical leader in the country.

Rev Kobia be the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony of the 22nd general convention of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, which takes place every four years.

The WCC general secretary is accompanied by Justice Sophia Adinyira ([Anglican] Church of the Province of West Africa) of the Supreme Court of Ghana, Rev Dr Sandy Yule (national secretary for Christian Unity, Uniting Church in Australia), and WCC programme executive for Asia Dr Mathews George Chunakara.

The WCC has a long-standing commitment to support advocacy against human rights violations in the Philippines. At the last two sessions of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, the WCC with other organisations jointly made interventions to highlight the grave human rights violations, especially the seriousness of the extrajudicial killings and "enforced disappearances" in the country.

Last March, a Philippine ecumenical delegation sponsored by the WCC and the Lutheran World Federation presented in Geneva the report "Let the stones cry out!", which documented more than 800 victims of extra-judicial executions from the year 2001 to that date.