Silliman Church Appeals for Dansalan College in Marawi

13 July 2017 

To Our Brothers and Sisters in the Wider Silliman Community: 

Dear Sillimanians and friends of Silliman, 

As the Senior Pastor of the University Church and in behalf of the whole Silliman University community, I am making this urgent appeal in behalf of our brothers and sisters in the stricken Dansalan College Foundation Inc. (DCFI) in Marawi City. 

 As disseminated in media, Dansalan College, a school under the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, is one of those that were critically affected by the ongoing conflict in Marawi City. The damage is not only to its infrastructure that included buildings riddled with bullets and gutted down by fire. There is greater impact on both the future and welfare of its students and faculty and staff – Christians and Moslems alike. In fact, 7 of its teachers had been taken hostage by the Maute group when they attacked the school premises and used it as one of their encampments in the city. 

In view of its destroyed facilities, including valuable library and laboratory assets, and as students were prevented by the violence from enrolling for the new school year, the DCFI was not able to open and resume operations. Each of the faculty and staff of the school therefore has not been receiving any salary from the school since the start of the conflict, even as some of them were reported to be nursing mothers. Most of them are now staying in evacuation centers or in the homes of relatives in Iligan City and nearby areas. 

Restoring dignity is a far greater hurdle now, alongside rehabilitating the very institution that had served as home and source of hope and valuable Christian education for many of our Filipino Christian and Moslem brothers and sisters in Marawi since the time it was established in the early 1950’s by the Congregational missionary Dr. Frank Laubach. Theirs is the struggle to live with a renewed sense of self and community at this time when they are in constant fear for their life and that of their families.  

The Silliman University Church, on behalf of all of us in the Silliman University, appeals to members of the Silliman and the larger community for financial support. Your financial support is primarily to extend immediate help to the Dansalan College faculty and staff to assist in their daily struggle for survival and secondarily, to contribute towards the long term rehabilitation of this only Christian school in a predominantly Muslim area. 

We knock on your hearts to extend whatever modest blessings you may have, so that we can further bolster hope among our brothers and sisters in Dansalan to recover and start the healing process. Our brothers and sisters in Dansalan College are in need of our prayers, compassion and support. Let us be one in helping them pick up the pieces. Let us assure them that we are one with them as a community of faith and as a Filipino nation.  

You may course your financial support to Silliman University. For us to trace donations deposited in any of these banks, please observe the following: 

1. E-mail the validated deposit slip to [email protected], cc [email protected]
2. Write in the subject line “Continuing Calamity Response Program Donation”
3. Indicate in the e-mail [a] the purpose of the deposit, [b] full name of the donor, and [c] mailing address and contact number of the donor. 

For concerns and requests for updates, you may contact the Church at (035) 422-6002 local 340 or 225-4837, or e-mail [email protected]; or the Office of the Vice President for Development at (035) 422-6002 local 223. 

Thank you very much and God’s blessings be with you all. 

Respectfully yours, 

Sgd. Rev. Noriel C. Capulong
Senior Minister