Iglesia used ‘hakot’ crowd to ‘shield’ Sanggunian — ex-minister

Iglesia ni Cristo members gather at Edsa-Shaw Sunday night to assail the supposed overreach of the Department of Justice in the internal affairs of the religious sect. Photo by Aries Joseph Hegina/INQUIRER.net

A former minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) alleged Tuesday that the leadership of the religious sect “misled” members to attend the four-day protest on Edsa to “shield” the group’s Sanggunian whom he accused of illegal detention, coercion and harassment.

Expelled minister Isaias Samson Jr. said that the members of the Sanggunian, INC’s highest advisory council, “lied” to the members so these would join the mass action.

“I know who they are, what they can do and will do just to protect themselves… In the past days they have lied to people, they used the name of Bro. Eduardo V. Manalo in order to make the members of the church follow them and they even made the members of the church to shield them,” Samson said in a telephone interview on ANC’s Headstart on Tuesday.

He alleged that the Sanggunian made the church members believe that INC’s executive minister Eduardo V. Manalo will be arrested.

“The Sanggunian has been misleading and using them by saying that it is Bro. Eduardo Manalo is the one at stake in this particular problem, that it is Bro. Eduardo Manalo is the one being accused and therefore he will be arrested. Sanggunian knows very well that is not true and yet that is what they spread to the members of the church,” Samson added.

The expelled minister said that the INC leadership needed to resort to mass up members from far-flung provinces and put them in rented vehicles so that they could join the protest action. He said that even children and old people were also asked to attend, disregarding their safety.

“God has placed the Sanggunian in shame because they have tried to mass or gather millions of member and yet they have failed miserably,” Samson said.

During the fourth day of the protest, more than 20,000 members of the religious sect showed up in Edsa-Shaw and occupying the stretch of Edsa Ortigas to Guadalupe.

They even tried to organize similar demonstrations in Cebu and Davao but on Monday morning, the protest abruptly ended after a “deal” was supposedly agreed upon by the government and the INC.

Malacañang denied that any agreement was reached.