resbak - Right Back At You! » Phillip Garcia

A cult full of lawbreakers?

truthcaster — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:04:47 +0000

Eliseo Soriano, the former leader of the cult “Ang Dating Daan” is supposedly set to hold a TV broadcast sometime in March of this year. According to his youtube channel, he will hold a “Worldwide Mass Indoctrination” on March 30, 2009. Funny things is that he only listed 4 countries to call for information.

Anyway, my point is that Eliseo Soriano is an international fugitive, wanted in the Philippines of the crime of homosexual rape and sodomy. Although all accused persons should be assumed innocent until proven guilty, the very fact of running from the law, and eluding justice gives a regular observer like me a strong feeling that maybe the accused is really guilty. But I digress from the my main point which is, Eliseo Soriano is an international fugitive wanted by the law. Interpol is asking for help from anyone with any information that would lead to his arrest. They are asking anyone with information to contact your local police for information.

Soriano’s group in the Philippines is still active, although not as virulent as before. They still collect money from their hapless followers to support Eliseo Soriano’s semi-permanent vacation overseas, living in a nice house and touring the world while his followers, most belonging to poor families, continue to struggle in this difficult time. Soriano’s group know where he his but would not help the police to locate him. Isn’t that continued harboring of a fugitive? I don’t know if there is a Philippine law concerning this, but in the U.S., this could get you in jail.

A few other people would probably know where he is. Soriano posted their names and telephone number on his youtube site.

Here are the names and numbers of the people who may know where Eliseo Soriano is and should inform the local police of his whereabouts. I wonder what would happen if I send this page to the police in all the countries listed below?

Philippines
(02) 455-8480
(02) 455-8482
(02) 455-8484

UNITED KINGDOM:
Bro. Ramon Bernardo:
+447810824237
Bro. Noel Gonzales:
+447799217028
Sis. Vhe Privado:
+447919532087
Locale No.:
+442082889651

SINGAPORE:
Bro. Aga Caacbay:
+ 6596777627
Bro. Michael del Rosario:
+6597442121
Bro. Robert Navoa:
+6597270842
Bro. Jun Gundayao:
+6591915513

HONG KONG:
Bro. Nang Fat Sze:
(852)62590045
Bro. Ferdie Petalio:
(852)62296075

Ask Bro. Eli! The “most sensible preacher” does not make sense

truthcaster — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:25:47 +0000

Ask the fugitive

Eli Soriano, the fugitive televangelist wanted by the Interpol fashions himself as a great biblical resource. He even allows himself to be called “Pantas” or wise man. Lofty, isn’t it? He sports many monikers such as “the most sensible preacher of our times”, “phenomenal preacher”, “Walking bible”, “Modern Jeremiah”, “the appointed one”, “he who holds the key”, and others. He even stole my handle, truthcaster. Other terms he uses to describe himself are “tech savvy” and “human encyclopedia”.

Ask the fugitive

But is he really all that? I looked into a few of his pronouncements and found a lot of weird stuff. Let’s together see if this man they call “wise man” make sense at all. Let’s take a look at just three things for now.

1. Sepoys of Cainta, Rizal:

In one episode of his Philippine talk show, he was asked why some people in Cainta, Rizal, Philippines where considerably darker than others.

Not even pausing to ponder the question, he said the reason was that the sun beats extra hot in Cainta, Rizal. Yup, that’s what he said. He said this bit with full authority as if he knew what he was talking about. He made it sound that, as a matter of fact, the sun is just hotter in Cainta, Rizal. He didn’t explain why this is so. There maybe a few reasons why the sun would beat extra harder or hotter in a certain spot, but would this make someone darker permanently? I can see some people may get a tan but to permanently change the color of the skin, and then pass this on to their children sounds a little over-reaching.

The Iglesia ni Cristo religious program Ang Tamang Daan, obviously and rightfully, not wanting this bad information to be taken as fact immediately responded with a correction and a lesson to impart an important historical detail. The reason why some people of Cainta, Rizal of considerably darker is because they are descendants of Sepoys who elected to remain in the Philippines. The Sepoys where Indians who served in the British army.

Way to go “wise man”. One strike for you.

Ask the fugitive

2. Roman 13:13

Again in an episode of his talkshow, supposedly televangelizing. A listener ask him to explain Roman 13:13. The conversation was in Tagalog and the verse as written in tagalog goes like this: “Magsilakad tayong mahinhin, gaya ng sa araw;”.This is the verse in English: “Let us behave properly as in the day“. And

In tagalog “araw” can mean the “sun“, or “day“. Guess which one “Mr Walking Bible” picked as the meaning of “araw” for this particular verse? The wrong one of course. The way he explained it made it even more hilarious. He said, the verse instruct people to walk gracefully, just as the sun glides gracefully across the sky from morning to night. If he had only truly understood the verse, or at least read the verse in English he could have saved him a lot of embarrassment.

Way to go “Walking bible”. two strikes.

Disqualified Soriano campaigning

3. In another episode, Soriano tells his members they can run for public office. Then he Soriano said :”But I will not join politics. I will not run as a candidate (for office). Why? Imagine, a preacher running for public office? Can one serve two lords? Christ didn’t allow that.”

Then he turns and run anyway and was disqualified as a nuisance candidate. He should add this to his monikers, “nuisanse”.

Thumbs down

3 strikes. You’re out! and out you should go.

There you go. Just two of the many “wisdom” from the “phenomenal preacher”. Doesn’t he give new meaning to the phrase ‘false preachers’?

Adapted from an episode of the Iglesia ni Cristo television program “Ang Tamang Daan”.

Behind Phillip Garcia’s libelous ramblings

truthcaster — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:52:14 +0000

Behind Phillip Garcia’s libelous ramblings: Of baseless charges and insinuations

This article is a response to an opinion piece published as news by truthoriented on nowpublic.com The said piece sourced a blog entry written by Phillip Garcia and published as news on newsvine.com.

I may be inadvertently giving new life to Phillip Garcia’s brief career move into blogging by responding to his post but I couldn’t resist. You see, I’d like Phillip Garcia to be in the same boat as his master Eliseo Fernando Soriano. Phillip Garcia is a shill of Soriano and like Soriano, they are both careless in speech and in writing. Bearing false witness is easy for them to do, and to them libel is not a crime. Phillip Garcia and about 2 or 3 of his cohorts went on topix.com, nowpublic.com and newsvine.com to spread lies about the Iglesia ni Cristo, and to praise they fugitive leader, the false prophet Eliseo Soriano. As you may observe, nothing came out of their dastardly act.

After reading the piece I begin to understand that this Phillip Garcia does not have any idea whatsoever what libel is. So let’s help him by defining libel:

libel – An untruthful statement about a person, published in writing or through broadcast media, that injures the person’s reputation or standing in the community. Because libel is a tort (a civil wrong), the injured person can bring a lawsuit against the person who made the false statement. Libel is a form of defamation , as is slander (an untruthful statement that is spoken, but not published in writing or broadcast through the media). [1]

In Phillip Garcia’s piece, he accuses the Iglesia ni Cristo and its leaders of crimes but provide no proof to base such accusations. What Phillip Garcia present are unverified supposedly reports from newspapers, of which complete citation are also no provided.

Phillip Garcia

So who is this Phillip Garcia? Don’t know much about him. Google search for his name doesn’t reveal anything substantial, let alone interesting. Except for a few things he wrote on ADD websites and his blog there’s really nothing to talk about. So why write about him? Well, let’s see what he wrote about the Iglesia ni Cristo.

You see, he wrote something on newsvine.com with this title:
“Behind the Iglesia Ni Cristo’s King Maker Role: A Chain of Crimes and Mythical Numbers”. This sounds like he knows what he’s talking about and that is, the Iglesia ni Cristo committed crimes. Let’s investigate further what he wrote to find out if he has proof to such charges.

He wrote and I quote:

Detailed here by prominent newspapers, the Supreme Court and a television station are random reports of the criminal and related activities of one such religious group, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) or Church of Christ, considered to be the kingmaker in the Philippine political arena. It spans contemporary times but leads back to 1954 where the founder, Felix Manalo, is featured as a rapist. Finally, it ends with Eraño Manalo’s own words about the nature of their mythical membership. Eraño, now in his early 80s, is the son of Felix Manalo. ~Phillip Garcia

Now these are serious charges. First off he said he detailed reports of criminal activities of the Iglesia ni Cristo. Let’s see what details he was talking about. Citing what he claims as sources but not providing details which can be used for independent verification, he continues to write;

On February 28, 1989, an angered Iglesia Ni Cristo minister shot two men with a .38 caliber pistol in Baranggay Lamot II, Calauang, Laguna, as reported by Jun Tiosen in newspaper, “Abante.” Calauang Police Station Commander Lt. Romulo Endaya identified the minister as Joseph Dadoy of Ma. Victoria Poultry Farm of that town. … The INC minister was arrested and imprisoned in Calauang Municipal Jail. ~ibid

So here we see that even in his own writing, it is absolutely clear the crime was committed by a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo, NOT the Iglesia ni Cristo not leaders of the Iglesia ni Cristo as Phillip Garcia say. Allegedly, crime was committed by MEMBERS of the Iglesia ni Cristo and this is Phillip Garcia’s proof for calling the Iglesia ni Cristo and it’s leaders criminal. He further writes:

Three years after the shooting incident, on March 1992, four Iglesia Ni Cristo deacons butchered five students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in the basement at the back of the INC chapel in Sta. Mesa, Manila.

According to Supreme Court Reports Annotated (SCRA), in August 28, 2000 Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. rendered judgment on the case “PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. JUANITO ABELLA, DIOSDADO GRANADA, BENJAMIN DE GUZMAN, and EDGARDO VALENCIA, accused-appellants,” where the four accused in these cases, who are deacons of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, were declared guilty beyond reasonable doubt on five (5) counts of MURDER. ~ibid

So here again is a case involving deacons or members of the Iglesia ni Cristo, NOT the Iglesia ni Cristo as clearly noted even in Phillip Garcia’s quoting of a supposed Supreme Court report. Again, Phillip Garcia’s clearly is guilty of libel for accusing the Iglesia ni Cristo and its leaders of crimes when it is clearly untrue. This clearly damages the images and honor of the leaders of the church not to mention the Iglesia ni Cristo and its members as a whole.

One would think that a normal person, after quoting the two cases mentioned above would realize that indeed the Iglesia ni Cristo clearly has nothing to do with the crimes and continuing to libel the organization would clearly be in itself criminal. But Phillip Garcia is apparently not normal, for he continued with this same pattern of making charges without proof. And again he did not provide sources to substantiate his accusations. Much like his amo the fugitive Eliseo Fernando Soriano, this Phillip Garcia does not seem to understand that you cannot just go around maligning people and damaging their refutation.

Displaying his distorted and skewed sense of right and wrong he writes:

With all these crimes surfacing from this religious group, it compels a sensical mind to ask why and to conclude that there must be a root of all these evil somewhere in the organization. And since the so-called “angel” Felix Manalo is the founder and former head of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, he is the primary subject to tracing this root, as well as to scrutinizing the founding principles of their church. ~ibid

Interpol Wanted Poster

If we follow his argument, then it would be appropriate to call him and the rest of the followers of Eliseo Fernando Soriano as fugitives. Soriano is in the Interpol watch list and has a wanted poster of him. If you search for “Soriano, Eliseo” on Google, it would be the first on the list.

He then accuses the deceased former leader of the Iglesia ni Cristo of a crime but again does not provide any verifiable source. Out of respect for the former leader of the Iglesia ni Cristo, I will not dignify Phillip Garcia’s lies by repeating them here. Suffice it to say, these charges are baseless and untrue and anyone making them should be ashamed of themselves and deserves to be put in jail.

Next on his list of attacks is the doctrine of unity which the Iglesia ni Cristo practices. He claims this to be coercion and suppression of the freedom of choice and that this practice is meant to increase the political influence of the Iglesia in Cristo. But is this true? The current leader of the Iglesia ni Cristo, Executive Minister Erano Manalo, defended the Iglesia ni Cristo’s unity and right to vote:

BLOC VOTING is a manifestation of religious unity that is essential to spiritual salvation.

“By voting as one, INC members are merely acting in accordance with their religious belief which is based on the Holy Scriptures,”

“They do so, not for the purpose of ensuring the victory of the chosen candidates, but primarily to give flesh to their belief that only by acting in unity with their brethren will they be truly faithful to the Church and thus be able to attain salvation,”

Manalo also maintained that the INC members’ exercise of their right of suffrage cannot be validly questioned by anyone “without infringing upon the right to religious profession and worship, which embraces the freedom to believe and freedom to act on one’s belief.” ~Aning, Jerome; “Iglesia leader defends bloc voting as a matter of faith”; Philippine Daily Inquirer; March 1, 2003

It’s clear from the news article that the Iglesia ni Cristo is not using its practice of unity to gain influence for how can you do that if you can’t ensure victory for the candidates you carry?

Finally, Phillip Garcia then complains about the number of Iglesia ni Cristo members and the lack of published reports about this number. I for one do not understand his obsession to find out the exact number and find it funny that he’s troubled by it. If you want to get a general idea as to how big the Iglesia ni Cristo is, here’s a tip. Count their places of worship, multiply that by the capacity of each chapel, multiply that by the number of service per chapel and you’ll get a sense of how many member there are.

I have just proven in this short article that his Phillip Garcia is much like his leader, the fugitive Eliseo Fernando Soriano. They are both guilty of libel and if I had my way they will both be in jail.

Sources:

Requejo, Rey E (May 4, 2006). “‘Dating Daan’ leader charged with sodomy“, Manila Standard Today. Retrieved on 30 December 2008.
Tubeza, Philip C DOJ backs libel raps vs Bro. Eli Philippine Daily Inquirer(pub Aug 15, 2004, byline)
Lopez, Allison (2008-06-21). “Dating Daan’s Ely Soriano posts bail“, Philippine Daily Inquirer, The INQUIRER Company. Retrieved on 17 August 2008.
newsinfo.inquirer.net, Ely Soriano charged with falsification of public document
Jannaral, Julmunir I (April 4, 2005) P1bn libel charges against a religious leader [Gulf Times http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=32176&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25]
ABS-CBN Interactive, Soriano placed on Watchlist
Garcia, Raymond C (February 26, 2008). “Ang Dating Daan failed to pay taxes“, Sun.Star Pampanga, Sun.Star Publishing, Inc. Retrieved on 12 November 2008.
anon, “WANTED – Soriano, Eliseo”. Interpol. Jan 22, 2009 .

[1] anon, “libel – legal definition”. Nolo.com. Jan 22, 2009 .