As a traveling overseer, Wilfredo Arellano has extensive experience serving in a variety of territories, some peaceful and others not so peaceful. In 1988 he visited a congregation in south-central Philippines. There the brothers had been pressured by subversives to join with them in rebellion against the government. The brothers firmly refused.

Wilfredo relates what happened: “During my visit, government troops were active in the congregation’s territory. They wanted to form the residents into a militia group to combat the subversives. At a meeting with government representatives, the brothers were given an opportunity to explain why they would not join the subversives or a government militia group. While some local residents were against our stand, the government spokesmen respected us.”

Wilfredo tells what happened next: “One brother, on returning to his farm after the meeting, encountered a group of heavily armed men with two blindfolded prisoners. He was questioned whether he had attended the government meeting, and he answered truthfully that he had. The armed men wanted to know if he had joined the militia, which he had not, and he explained his neutral stand. Thus, he was allowed to continue on his way home. A few minutes later, he heard two shots and realized that the blindfolded prisoners had been executed.”

In 1982, tests came our way because of neutrality. In Mindanao, rebellion against the government was rampant. Because I was conducting Bible studies with so-called rebel officials, government soldiers branded me as a “lecturer” for the leftists. However, a government official explained that what we teach comes wholly from the Bible and is not political in nature.

At the same time, I was viewed negatively by the rebels because when I went preaching, I first witnessed to the barrio captain and to the commander of the military detachment. But they didn’t touch us because a rebel official with whom I was studying stood up for us.