SC asked to order Iglesia leaders to produce missing members

The brother and the sister-in-law of Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) minister Lowell Menorca urged the Supreme Court to order top officials of the INC to to bring their missing relatives before the court.

In a 9-page petition for the issuance of the writs of amparo and habeas corpus, Anthony, brother of Lowell and Jungko, twin sister of Jinky, Lowell’s wife told the high court that the family is being detained by the INC leadership.

READ: Suspended Iglesia ni Cristo minister details detention | INC council wants to help ‘brother’ in jail — lawyer

Named respondents are INC Executive Minister Eduardo Manalo and members of the sect’s Sanggunian, Radel Cortez, Bienvenido Santiago, and Rolando Esguerra.

The petition was filed not only on behalf of Lowell and Jinky but also Yurie, their newly born child and househelp Abegail Yanson.

Only Jungko has been allowed to see the family.

“Although they were not placed inside prison cells, the group [was] not allowed to wander about inside the compound,” the petition stated.

The petition said aside from the Menorca family, other members of the detained group have been experiencing emotional and psychological stress. One of the detained, a woman in her late seventies, is under “tremendous physical deterioration, emotional anxiety and psychological stress.”

Last Oct. 15, Jungko said in the petition that she was prohibited from visiting their family. She said Esguerra informed her that there was a security dry-run.

Lowell Menorca was earlier identified by Isaias Samson Jr., former editor-in-chief of Pasugo, INC’s official publication as the one taken and detained in Cavite for illegal possession of explosives.

Petitioners said Menorca was among those suspected by INC leadership to be Anthony Ebanghelista, the blogger writing against INC.

They said last July 16, armed men including one wearing a police uniform with Quezon City Police District patch handcuffed and took Lowell.

“His wife, Jinky Otsuka-Menorca, witnessed the taking of Lowell Menorca and would have been taken herself, had she not grabbed a knife and threatened to stab the officers of the church and the policewoman who came to ‘arrest’ her,” the petition read.

The petition claimed that respondent Esguerra called Jinky on the phone and “told her, in a very menacing manner, that she would never see her husband again unless she appeared at the [INC] office in Quezon City.”

Jinky was escorted to the INC Central office along with her daughter, Yurie, and their househelp, Abbegail, according to the petition.

Jinky allegedly called petitioner Jungko to inform her that “this may well be the last time she would be communicating with her as she had just become a prisoner of the respondents and the INC” before Jinky’s phone was confiscated.

The petition stated that Jinky was able to call petitioner Jungko several times thereafter to give updates on her family’s situation.

A writ of habeas corpus is a remedy sought on behalf of any person who is imprisoned or restrained of his liberty; a writ of amparo is a remedy available to any person whose right to life, liberty and security is violated or threatened. IDL