Biking priest returns from 5,164-km nationwide ride

MANILA, Philippines - After almost two months of biking around the country - and getting a rude treatment from presidential guards - "biking priest" Amado Picardal completed Sunday his "bike for peace" tour. Online news site MindaNews (www.mindanews.com) reported that Picardal was greeted with cheers and applause as he arrived at the Redemptorist compound in Davao City at 2:15 p.m. Sunday. The report said Picardal had bruised knees, after having "crashed twice" a day earlier, along the rocky road of Cateel in Davao Oriental, with no one to help him. In his last leg from Panabo to Davao City, he was accompanied by at least 50 bikers, some of them taking turns to help him. Picardal, Dean of Academics of the St. Alphonsus Theologate at the Redemptorists in Davao City, dubbed his 56-day bike journey as "Philippine Bike-Tour for Life and Peace: Preaching the Gospel of Life amidst the Culture of Death." He left Mindanao from Davao City on March 24, on to Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro where he boarded a boat for the Visayas. He returned to Mindanao via a boat ride from Southern Leyte to Surigao City on May 11 and took a day's rest on May 12. - GMANews.TV