Accused Eliseo Soriano: Guilty?

Guilty!

No, not yet anyway. It’s just such a catchy title that I couldn’t resist.
But I am wondering. If ever Eliseo Soriano, founder, former presiding minister and former leader of the cult Ang Dating Daan – MCGI would ever decide to surrender or get caught and extradited back to the Philippines, would he be found guilty or would he be exonerated?

For now, nobody knows. Until and unless the wheels of justice are allowed to turn no one will ever know the outcome. If it’s true that Soriano left the Philippines sometime in 2005 then he had been on the run for almost 4 years now.

WANTED: Soriano Eliseo

Of the 18 male fugitives of Philippine nationality on the Interpol Wanted list, only two are accused of sex crimes. Both of them are supposed to be preachers of God’s word. One is a catholic priest and the other is Eliseo Fernando Soriano. The priest is accused of raping a 14 year old girl, a member of his parish. Soriano is accused of raping a male subordinate. Any accused person should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The law requires the accused to face his accuser in a court of law and there prove his accuser wrong.

The rape accusation is not the only legal problem facing Soriano should he decide to come back to the Philippines. There are also a few libel cases filed against him by the Iglesia ni Cristo and also by the Muslims. The one filed by the Muslims stemmed from  some unsavory remarks made by Eliseo Soriano against Muslims and their prophet. This was broadcasted in one of his daily talk shows where he regularly spew diatribe against regular people, politicians and other religious organizations. And get this, he does his daily sermons via CD-rom. So there is a chance that Muslims have a copy of this episode.

Muslims protest Soriano

Anyway, the lawsuit by the Muslims calls for PHP1 billion in damages. That’s a lot of money! And because he hasn’t been in the Philippines for quite a while I’m pretty sure his resources are on the lean side. You see, Soriano get his money from his members and his many businesses one of which is selling cooked food which he says he prepares himself. Without him, I guess no one will prepare and sell the food.

The Muslims claim in their lawsuit that Soriano “uttered malicious sweeping … imputation of crimes … against them(Muslims)” which they say “exposed them to dishonor, disgrace, shame…”. Soriano,  as is the case in all of his legal troubles, denies he did what he’s accused of. But do the Muslims have a case? Can they show proof that indeed Soriano maligned them and their prophet? Well, you be the judge. Here’s Eliseo Soriano and what he said about Muslims. I got his off of youtube and cut the other stuff to leave just the part where he calls Muslims killers and then proceeded to malign even their prophet.

Here’s the transcript translated in english:

Soriano: “That’s what Muslims do. I’m not saying this because I’m crazy and I have a death wish because they indeed kill.”

Soriano: “You encounter a Muslim, they’ll criticize the bible. They say the bible is wrong. I say, they’re crazy. I tell them ‘well if the bible is wrong then why are you using it to justify Mohammad’s prophecy?’ They say the one mention in Deuteronomy 1*:18-19 is Mohammad and then they turn and criticize the bible. They criticize the bible and then use it to justifies Mohammad’s prophecy then you’re crazy, even Mohammad is crazy”.

As you can see, Soriano does not have even an iota of respect for leaders of other religions and regularly maligns them. You probably seen and heard how he libels leaders of the Iglesia ni Cristo.

There you go. I think the Muslims have enough evidence. One billion pesos is a lot of money. Soriano will be very hard pressed to produce this amount. As usual, Eliseo Soriano swears to high heaven saying the original of this tape was doctored and fabricated. He thought this would be enough. But then comes an expert in voice recognition who challenged him to submit to tests that would prove either the voice was from someone else, or is it really Soriano’s. Typical of Soriano, he maligns the expert and questioned his intention. Anyone who is not guilty will welcome the chance to prove his accusers  wrong. Not Eli.

Big mouth

It’s looking really grim for Soriano. I personally don’t think he’ll ever go back to the Philippines. Like what I’ve said in a previous blog, Soriano’s end is here and now. The instrument he used to become popular, his big mouth, is the same instrument that brought him crashing down. Goodbye Eli, and good night.