A bishop of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) has called on authorities to hunt down the killers of Korean missionary, Reverend Cho Te Hwan.

“Leave no stones unturned in pursuing and bringing the perpetrators of this barbaric act to justice,” PCEC national director Bishop Efraim Tendero’s said in an appeal to Philippine authorities following Cho’s funeral on Aug. 25.

Reverend Cho, who worked in the Philippines for eleven years, “gave his life for the people he was serving,” Bishop Tendero said.

The Korean missionary was driving from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila before midnight on Aug. 22 after fetching visitors from Korea when armed men blocked his car.

Fearing that the attackers would abduct his visitors, the missionary refused to open the doors and stayed in his seat where he was shot several times before the gunmen fled.

Bishop Tendero said Cho did not deserve to die “such a brutal death because he came here in the country to serve Christ and the people.”

PCEC is the largest network of evangelical Christians in the Philippines. Bishop Tendero previously served as adviser to former president Fidel Ramos and led the National Ecumenical Consultative Committee.

Cho’s wife said the family is praying for the perpetrators of the crime.

“It’s not important to me now that the criminals be apprehended but that they may know Jesus Christ who Reverend Cho served,” the missionary’s wife said in a media statement.

Cho began his ministry in Legaspi City in 1999 then moved northwest to Metro Manila.

He later worked among the urban poor in Arienda, Pasig City, east of the capital, where he established the Arienda Peace Church.

Police are investigating whether a gang victimizing foreign nationals was behind the killing.

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