Behind Phillip Garcia’s libelous ramblings

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 <http://www.interpol.int/public/data/wanted/notices/data/2008/50/2008_13250.asp>.

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[1] anon, “libel - legal definition”. Nolo.com. Jan 22, 2009 <http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/7613C25C-8E5D-47A5-9E0D93B952DE16E7/alpha/L/>.