petitioning a government for redress of grievance

Upload: toto-onato

Post on 05-Apr-2018

215 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

  • 7/31/2019 Petitioning a Government for Redress of Grievance

    1/3

    Petitioning a government for redress of grievance-

    An open letter to President Benigno

    Noynoy Aquino III of the Philippines

    HIS EXCELLENCY:

    May the blessings of the Almighty God be with you always!

    We, the Members, Church of God International (MCGI) composed of American, African,Filipino, other European and Asian citizens give thanks to God for this opportunity to freely

    express ourselves and deliver this message, a humble plea of Christiansa cry for justice! This

    time Mr. President, we set aside our respective national identity and bind ourselves together inChrist to lawfully express our resistance to injustice, human rights violation and religious

    intolerance committed against Bro. Eliseo F. Soriano or Bro. Eli, Filipino, the Presiding Minister

    of MCGI better known as Ang Dating Daan (ADD) or The Old Path.

    Notwithstanding the diversity of our former religious affiliations, we listened to Bro. Eli andappreciated the wisdom of his uncompromising revelation of the biblical truth. His sensible andundefiled biblical propagation used to successfully expose the sanctimonious practices by groups

    hiding under the cloak of Christian religion. As we became enlightened and followed him in

    droves, the organized and powerful detractors on the other hand were threatened and became

    excessively envious and insecure. Hence, Bro. Eli had become a fair game and target of endless

    harassments, vicious smear campaign and other forms of persecution in his home countryespecially during the corruptible regime of former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal

    Arroyo.http://socyberty.com/politics/indecent-political-affair-and-injustices-to-remember/

    The reign of Arroyo (from period 2001-2010) was for us the darkest days in the life of Bro. Eli

    as well as in the history of MCGI or ADD. The kind of political exercise under that regime (with

    questionable mandate due to Arroyos massive electoral fraud) primarily featuredaccommodations of the whims and caprices of her rich and powerful political investors.

    Incidentally, our main detractor, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) was one of them so that during

    Arroyos term, it kept throwing its weight around the Philippine criminal justice system to make

    sure that life would be miserable for Bro. Eli and the ADD.

    Records and evidences on hand would show that occasional violence (resulting to deaths in somecases), desecrations of our worship places and habitual suspension of our religious TV programs

    (by MTRCB, a governments regulatory body) were committed against us in deliberateprogression. The strings of harassments were obviously orchestrated to silence Bro. Eli. All of

    them however, were found insufficient to do the trick and satisfy the INCs inherent lust for turfsupremacy. Hence, while they were into it, many imaginable libel complaints against Bro. Eli

    http://socyberty.com/politics/indecent-political-affair-and-injustices-to-rememb%20er/http://socyberty.com/politics/indecent-political-affair-and-injustices-to-rememb%20er/http://socyberty.com/politics/indecent-political-affair-and-injustices-to-rememb%20er/http://socyberty.com/politics/indecent-political-affair-and-injustices-to-rememb%20er/
  • 7/31/2019 Petitioning a Government for Redress of Grievance

    2/3

    were initiated one after another and soon, the list of INC sponsored libel cases that our preacher

    had to face in various Philippine courts was too long!

    On top of that Mr. President, the INC also filed sometime in 2001 a frustrated murder case and in

    2004, a rape case against Bro. Eli. It appeared that sheer influence enabled the invented

    frustrated murder case to find its way into the court for trial only to be dismissed during the earlypart of 2010 for lack of merit, thank God! On the other hand, the ridiculous rape charge had been

    previously dismissed at the level of the Fiscals office in Pampanga in January 2006 but thesurprise intervention of the Department of Justice then under Secretary Raul Gonzales in March

    of the same year voided the earlier court resolution and it paved the way for the subsequent re-

    filing (as per instruction) of the dismissed rape case.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVhjPeXvrY

    It was worth noting too that the complainants Bernardo Santiago in frustrated murder case and

    Daniel Veridiano in rape case were INC converts and former members of ADD. They filed theirrespective complaint against Bro. Eli only when they became privileged members of the INC.

    These two (2) people were earlier excommunicated from ADD for adultery in the case ofSantiago and multiple rape and malverzation of funds in the case of Veridiano, a self-confessed

    rapist.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9zc0lf52Ms&feature=related

    The INC could have ended up with just the strings of monotonous libel cases (against Bro. Eli) in

    its arsenal of legal dirty tricks had it not been able to influence the revival of the moribundrape case. This rejuvenated weapon for character assassination was maximized by INC on June

    18, 2009 when the program Case Unclosed of GMA 7 aired a controversial one sided interview

    featuring a self-confessed serial rapist Veridiano whos temerity to cry rape was extremelyappalling to say the least.

    Two years later on August 3, 2011, the fire of our consternation was rekindled when the sameepisode was replayed by GMA News through Channel 11 in utmost disregard to balanced

    reporting and faithful journalism. Clearly, this was an example of trial by publicity. It was meant

    to influence public opinion against an accused who was barred from discussing the merit of his

    case under courts jurisdiction and who deserved presumption of innocence unless provenotherwise.

    Mr. President, His Excellency, the persecution and religious intolerance that Bro. Eli and thechurch are suffering from are end products of crooked mentality no different from the carry over

    "wang wang" mentality from the previous administration. It is the kind of mentality that

    promotes greed instead of moderation, hatred instead of understanding and wickedness instead of

    righteousness. It gives us much encouragement that such kind of mentality will have no place inyour administration as you have stated.

    Finally, Mr. President, as we are hereby oriented by the "straight path" code of your righteouspolitical direction, we now begin to hope for that fair share of justice (not preferential treatment)

    under your governance and that justice at last will be served without fear or favor to every

    manincluding ourbeloved spiritual leader Bro. Eli Soriano.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVhjPeXvrYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVhjPeXvrYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9zc0lf52Ms&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9zc0lf52Ms&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9zc0lf52Ms&feature=relatedhttp://kotawinters.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/ang-dating-daan-blasts-gma7-self-branding-as-house-of-truth/http://kotawinters.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/for-%20irresponsible-reporting-ang-dating-daan-boycotts-gmanews-anew/http://kotawinters.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/for-%20irresponsible-reporting-ang-dating-daan-boycotts-gmanews-anew/http://kotawinters.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/for-%20irresponsible-reporting-ang-dating-daan-boycotts-gmanews-anew/http://kotawinters.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/ang-dating-daan-blasts-gma7-self-branding-as-house-of-truth/http://kotawinters.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/ang-dating-daan-blasts-gma7-self-branding-as-house-of-truth/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9zc0lf52Ms&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVhjPeXvrY
  • 7/31/2019 Petitioning a Government for Redress of Grievance

    3/3

    More Power and God Bless Mr. President!

    - Members, Church of God International