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 in Christ 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 and appreciated the wisdom of his uncompromising revelation of the biblical truth. His sensible and undefiled 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 country especially 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 featured accommodations 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 some cases), desecrations of our worship places and habitual suspension of our religious TV programs (by MTRCB, a governments regulatory body) were committed against us in deliberate progression. 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 turf supremacy. Hence, while they were into it, many imaginable libel complaints against Bro. Eli

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 early part 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 the surprise 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 refiling (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 their respective 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 of Santiago 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 moribund rape 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 extremely appalling to say the least. Two years later on August 3, 2011, the fire of our consternation was rekindled when the same episode 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 proven otherwise. Mr. President, His Excellency, the persecution and religious intolerance that Bro. Eli and the church 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 in your administration as you have stated. Finally, Mr. President, as we are hereby oriented by the "straight path" code of your righteous political 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 our beloved spiritual leader Bro. Eli Soriano.

More Power and God Bless Mr. President!

- Members, Church of God International