ACTIVIST and tour guide Carlos Celdran has passed away. He was 46.
His wife Tesa said Celdran died of natural causes.
"As the family is making arrangements to bring him home, no details can be announced yet. Only that he passed from natural causes," Tesa wrote on her Facebook Tuesday, October 8, 2019.
Celdran migrated to Madrid, Spain in January 2019, about six months after the Supreme Court upheld the decision of a lower court convicting him of violating a provision of the Revised Penal Code for "offending religious feelings".
The case stemmed from a September 2010 protest against the Catholic Church's opposition to the Reproductive Health Act, during which Celdran dressed as Jose Rizal and held a placard with the word "Damaso".
Damaso refers to Padre Damaso, an arrogant Spanish friar in Rizal's book "Noli Me Tangere" who was opposed to the union of his daughter Maria Clara to protagonist Crisostomo Ibarra.
In a note posted on Facebook on February 14, 2019, Celdran said he has left his "beloved Intramuros" for good "mostly due to an aggressive political climate and the personal risks upon my basic right to freedom of speech and expression."
His last entry on Facebook, which was posted Monday dawn, was in reaction to President Rodrigo Duterte's revelation that he has an autoimmune disease called myasthenia gravis.
Celdran's Facebook account has more than 120,000 followers. (MVI/SunStar Philippines)