God\u2019s Victorious Army, a small 12-year-old Christian church in the CNMI, is seeking the community\u2019s assistance in repatriating their late pastor\u2019s body back to the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Robert Perez, a member of the religious sect, said Pastor Augusto Villa, 54, passed away last Jan. 30. Villa, he said, died in his sleep. His lifeless body was discovered by one of the church members inside his room. <\/p>\n
The pastor was immediately brought to the Commonwealth Health Center, where he was declared dead on arrival.<\/p>\n
Immanuel Methodist Church Pastor Jim Sembrano, who is Villa\u2019s close friend, said Villa\u2019s remains remains at the hospital due to lack of funds. <\/p>\n
Sembrano said that, since Villa was a missionary with an accompanying missionary resident status in the CNMI, he doesn\u2019t have any employer who would take care of the hospital bills. Sembrano said Villa also didn\u2019t receive any salary as a pastor when he was alive. <\/p>\n
Sembrano said God\u2019s Victorious Army has been trying to raise funds for the late pastor but it is still not enough to pay for the hospital bills and the repatriation of his remains to his hometown in Romblon, Philippines. <\/p>\n
He said the local funeral service initially asked the church for $10,000 to cover the funeral service for the pastor but due to God\u2019s Victorious Army\u2019s limited resources, the company lowered the asking price to $4,700. The fee already includes the transportation of the body to Manila.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill the church won\u2019t be able to afford the service,\u201d Sembrano said, adding that there would be added costs to Villa\u2019s return to the Philippines because, from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the body has to be flown south to Romblon where his child and wife would receive him.<\/p>\n
Perez said one of their church members went to the Philippine Consulate Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, but was turned down due to Villa\u2019s failure to pay his OWWA dues, which would cover assistance to Filipino nonresident workers who would need assistance.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s Victorious Army, with only 40 current members, is currently holding nightly prayer services at their Susupe church. Perez said those who want to help the late pastor may contact the church at 235-9246. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
God\u2019s Victorious Army, a small 12-year-old Christian church in the CNMI, is seeking the community\u2019s assistance in repatriating their late pastor\u2019s body back to the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}