News
Dr Erlinda N. Senturias, a physician, educator, ecumenical activist and former World Council of Churches (WCC) staff member from the Philippines, has been named by President Benigno Aquino III to the nation’s new Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board.
Senturias’s appointment was announced on 13 February.
The nine-member independent and quasi-judicial body, to be chaired by former two-star police general Lina Castillo Sarmiento, will determine levels of compensation for persons whose human rights were violated during the period of martial law from 1972 to 1986 under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
The budget for financial restitution comes from funds of about 10 billion Philippine pesos (approx. 163 million euros) recovered from Marcos’s wealth.
Senturias served the WCC from 1989 to 1997 as a programme executive in the office of Health and Healing. She returned to the Philippines to serve as president of South Christian College in Midsayap, Cotabato and has also worked with the Christian Conference of Asia as a consultant on the churches’ role in addressing HIV/AIDS.
She is currently editing the official report of the 10th Assembly of the WCC, held at Busan in the Republic of Korea from October to November 2013. This publication, to be available in mid-2014, will be framed by Dr Senturias’s perspective on the history, events and issues in which the world church is engaged.
Interview with Dr Erlinda N. Senturias: A church that listens fosters healthy communities (15 March 2013)
