INC wants expelled members out of Manalo residence

MANILA, Philippines - Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) has sought court intervention to prohibit “strangers” from going in and out of the residence where the estranged relatives of executive minister Eduardo Manalo are staying.

Represented by lawyer Serafin Cuevas Jr., the INC filed a civil case before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 81 seeking an injunction that will stop expelled INC members from going in and out of the Manalo residence at 36 Tandang Sora Avenue in Quezon City.

Named respondents in the case were Manalo’s siblings, Felix Nathaniel or Angel and Lolita Manalo-Hemedez or Lottie, as well as several expelled members of the church.

The respondents, through lawyer Trixie Cruz-Angeles, sought the inhibition of Judge Madonna Echiverri from the case during the hearing for the prayer for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction.

Echiverri, who granted the motion, teaches at the INC-run New Era University. Cuevas is a dean of the university’s college of law.

With the inhibition of Echiverri, the hearing on the petition for the TRO was deferred until after the raffle of the case to another judge.

Cuevas told The STAR that they sought court intervention as the INC leadership does not want to put the law into its own hands.

He said they decided to file the case after security personnel noticed that strangers were going in and out of the Manalo residence, which is owned by the church.

“As the registered owner, the church has the authority to stop anyone from entering its property,” he said, adding that security officers have monitored boxes entering the compound.

Cuevas said the residents are free to enter the Manalo residence, saying the legal case was meant to ensure peace in the compound.

Cruz-Angeles, in a separate interview with The STAR, said they would oppose the INC petition.

She said the boxes seen by the security personnel being brought in the residence were provisions for the Manalo siblings and their families.

Cruz-Angeles said a request for a TRO is filed only when a right of a plaintiff, in this case the INC, is violated. She said her clients have not violated any right when they accepted visitors.

Earlier, the INC leadership expelled the Manalo siblings along with their mother Christina or Tenny for creating divisions within the church.

Prior to the expulsion, Angel appeared in a video and asked their members to help them.

He later spoke to media and clarified that they were not being detained in their residence. Angel has revealed supposed anomalies within the church, which the INC denied as baseless allegations.

Church officials filed libel cases against the expelled ministers for allegedly issuing statements that damaged the reputation of the religious group.

Expelled INC minister Isaias Samson Jr. has responded to the libel suit filed against him by the religious group.

In a four-page affidavit  filed before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office, Samson, former editor-in-chief, of INC’s publication Pasugo, said he did not utter malicious statement against the church.

Last month, thousands of INC members trooped to EDSA to protest the supposed special treatment given by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on the illegal detention case filed against some officials of the church.