ISAIAS TALENS SAMSON, JR.

, MYRNA
DIONELA SAMSON, and
ISAIAH
DIONELA SAMSON,
Complainants,
VERSUS

I.S. NO. __________________

GLICERIO B. SANTOS JR., RADEL G.

CORTEZ, BIENVENIDO C. SANTIAGO,
SR., MATHUSALEM V. PAREJA,
ROLANDO A. ESGUERRA, ERAO
CODERA, RODELIO CABRERRA, and
MAXIMO BULARAN,
Respondents.
______________________________________________________________________________

COMPLAINT AFFIDAVIT
I, ISAIAS SAMSON, JR. of legal age, with mailing address care of my
counsel at 259 15th Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City, after being duly sworn to in
accordance with law, do hereby depose and state that:
1. I am a former minister and member of the Iglesia ni Cristo,
hereinafter referred to as INC. Before I was expelled from INC, upon
the goading of the Respondents, I had been serving my Church in this
capacity for 42 years. My co-complainants are members of my family:
My wife and son, respectively, who are also former members of the INC;
2. The Respondents are all members of the INC. They are also
current members of the Sanggunian, which is the highest administrative
council of the INC. They may be served with warrants, sub-poenae,
summons and other court processes at their office address stated
hereunder:
Iglesia ni Cristo Central Office,
1 Central Avenue, Bgy. New Era
Quezon City
3. I was ordained minister of INC on July 27, 1973. In the year
2007, I was to become a member of the Sanggunian by the Church
leadership. I started to undertake my duties that same year as minister

and member of the Sanggunian, head of INC foreign mission. On

February, 2012 I was made editor-in-chief of GOD's MESSAGE
(PASUGO), the INC official magazine;
4. The Sanggunians powers include but are not limited to the
power to investigate controversies involving ministers and church
members; to set and implement church policies; to advise the Executive
Minister on all matters of faith and administration of the congregation;
and to execute the directives of the Executive Minister;
5. During the course of my membership, I obtained personal
knowledge of several suspicious transactions entered into by one
Glicerio Santos, Jr., who is also a minister; and a member and de facto
leader of the said Sanggunian;
6. As a result of this knowledge, I began questioning these
transactions and policies set by the Sanggunian, which I felt were
against the avowed principles of our faith; not to mention that these
activities amounted to a serious mishandling of the finances of the INC;
7. One such questionable transaction was in relation to the
Lingap Pamamahayag (hereinafter, Lingap) program. The Lingap is a
regular Church charitable activity to help the poor members and nonmembers alike. The said activity involves the distribution of aid, in the
form of money and/or goods, to the less-privileged members of the
society, especially those who are victims of calamities;
8. Church Officers and Lingap organizers collected cash and
goods from members, which are collected during days of worship.
Often, they would also go to the houses of INC members to collect
donations, which are usually specified by the collectors themselves.
Hence, if an officer or Lingap organizer came to our house and asked us
to donate three (3) cans of sardines, three (3) kilos of rice, and (3) pieces
of instant noodles, then our family would have no choice but to turn
over to the collector the said items in the amounts so specified;
9. Since the Lingap is a charitable activity, it is very seldom that
the INC leadership would evaluate or audit the financial expenses after
each successful endeavor;
10. Because of this, it is very easy to see that the Lingap program
could become the target of deceitful and corrupt schemes of any
unscrupulous INC member or officer, such as powerful member or
members of the Sanggunian;

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11. On one occasion, during a Lingap activity which was intended

to aid the Yolanda victims, the Lingap organizers had reported that the
amount of rice they had gathered from the donations of members fell
short of the target amount as originally intended. They reported this
shortage to the members of the Sanggunian, including myself, with the
objective of requesting for funds to procure additional rice needed to
be repacked and distributed. The Lingap organizers requested for the
amount of ONE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND PESOS (P
1,700,000.00) for the additional rice and for hiring transportation for
the distribution of the said goods. However to my surprise, Mr. Glicerio
Santos, Jr., head of the Sanggunian, who reported the problem to the
office of the Executive Minister, had asked for and was in fact given a
terribly jacked-up amount of NINE MILLION PESOS (P9,000,000.00);
12. Other similar incidents of this kind, involving direct deception
and siphoning of Church funds, have also come to my knowledge. In all
of these shameless schemes, the name of Respondent Santos would
always come up, along with the names of the other current members of
the Sanggunian. In a sense, it seemed to me that the current
Sanggunian membership has been implementing a pervasive policy of
deception, fraud and corruption to serve their own individual greed;
13. Talks of this controversy began to spread among the INC
members, here and abroad, leaving most people in confusion and
anxiety about the status of the political system within the INC. Soon
enough, the hushed talks reached critical mass and could not be
contained anymore. The controversy went public;
14. On 11 April 2015, a web log (blog) called IGLESIA NI CRISTO
Silent No More, which purported to be owned and maintained by one
Antonio Ramirez Ebanghelista appeared on the internet. In his blog,
Antonio Ramirez Ebanghelista exposed several suspicious transactions
entered into by Glicerio Santos, Jr. and his cohorts in the Sanggunian, in
relation to projects and programs of the INC. In each and every one of
the reported scandalous transactions, there is always an involvement of
a disbursement of so much amount of INC funds, most of which could
not be justified by the results of the respective endeavor involved. And
in all of these financial transactions, a great many of the members of
the INC truly believe that most of the money disbursed went directly
into the pockets of the members of the current Sanggunian;
15. This belief is so wide-spread that it has become common
knowledge to every devout INC member. In fact, the expression Alam
naman ng lahat yan, would almost always be uttered by any given

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member in any given discussion about the fraudulent actuations of the

Sanggunian;
16. The blog revealed several events which occurred within the
Church that eventually led to the expulsion from the Church of the
widow of the late Erao Manalo and their son; to the expulsion of
several ministers and their families; and finally, to the harassment,
abduction and illegal detention of several other ministers and their
families;
17. The blog, which is very obviously ran by someone using a
pseudonym, seemed to be replete with credible stories and accounts of
incidents that consequently impelled several members of the INC to
react by asking questions of their own about what is happening within
the walls of the compound at the Central Temple in Quezon City. Not
only that, the blog accounts, despite purporting to have been written by
several different individuals, seemed to fit the other accounts, thus
making the expos revealed therein very believable indeed;
18. The blog accounts seemed to be pointing an accusing finger at
the Sanggunian as a whole, to be the author of the anomalous
transactions and activities, thereby making the members thereof
probably liable for the numerous incidents of over-spending and
mishandling of INCs finances;
19. This suspicion spread throughout the congregation. Many
members, both here and abroad, began contacting me to ask about the
brewing controversy. On my part, being a servant of the INC, decided to
defer the resolution of the entire matter to the Church officials. Thus,
whenever I was asked, I had consistently denied knowledge of any of it;
20. On July 9, 2015, Rene Panuncillo came to my office and told
me to surrender our passports. After several days, I informed him that
my wife had been having a hard time finding our passports. I requested
more time to locate the said documents because exerting so much
effort was detrimental to the health of my wife. Panuncillo acceded but
told me that I still needed to submit the passports as soon as possible.
On 14 July 2015 we finally found the passports. Upon learning this,
Panuncillo ordered me to surrender them to his office on July 15;
21. On 15 July 2015 Wednesday, Rene Panuncillo, the head of
Human Resources office of the INC, came to my office to collect my
passport. Mr. Panuncillo did so under the guise of collecting the said
document to be examined in relation to an on-going Sanggunian
investigation of incidents of over-staying by some INC (ministers on
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foreign mission) within the territories of the host countries in which

they have been assigned. Thinking that I was aiding a worthwhile
Sanggunian endeavor, I obediently turned over three (3) passports
belonging to my wife, son and myself. Little did I know that that would
mark the beginning of what would become a series of planned and
concerted efforts to persecute my family and myself, to the great
prejudice of our constitutional and statutory rights;
22. On 16 July 2015, Thursday, at or around 11:00 in the morning,
six (6) of the eight (8) members of the Sanggunian, namely Rodel
Cortez, Bienvenido Santiago, Sr., Mathusalem Pareja, Erano Codera,
Rodel Cabrera and Maximo Bularan, Jr. came to my office at the Office
of Print Evangelism, located in the compound of the Central Church. I
realized later that the sole purpose for their visit was to accuse me of
being Antonio Ebanghelista;
23. They began by asking vague and misleading questions which
they thought were calculated to make me either confess to being
Ebanghelista or reveal the true identity of the same. On my part, since
I really was and still am not the person they are accusing me to be, I
simply but carefully evaded their ridiculous questions. After an hour of
not getting any favorable answer from me, they shifted to a more
stringent, threatening and ultimately wildly aggressive mode of
interrogation. The whole affair felt very surreal to me; and the feeling
of fear and anxiety made me think that I was experiencing what it would
have been like to be the subject of Torquemadas Inquisition;
24. Little by little, it became clear to me that the Sanggunian was
hell-bent at pinning the great expos on me. True enough, in a bid to
extract more information which they thought they could use to
substantiate their specious allegations, they subsequently confiscated
my phone and my office desktop computer;
25. Towards the end of the surreal confrontation, Respondents
through Radel Cortez ordered me in this wise: House arrest ka na.
Hindi ka pwedeng makipagusap kahit kanino. The rest of the
Sanggunain indicated agreement with what Cortez had so casually said
to me, which in turn convinced me that everything that had transpired
thus far had been planned and agreed to before they ever came to my
office that day;
26. While all that was happening, I had barely noticed that
Mathusalem Pareja together with one Danny Galvez, left my office and
proceeded to my residence, which is located within the Central
compound. Danny Galvez is an employee of the Church hired to do IT
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work (read: electronic attacks and spying). Thus, confederating and

collaborating with each other under the direction of the Sanggunian,
Pareja and Galvez had forced their way into my house and forcibly taken
my home computer, to the great shock and anxiety of my wife and son;
27. At first, it had not dawned on me that the Sanggunian was
serious about putting me under house arrest. So later that day, I still
brought my family to Church to attend the service. However upon our
return home, Radel Cortez, again came to our house and sternly
ordered me and my family to never leave our own house. It was then
that it dawned on me: the Sanggunian is isolating me and my family
from the rest of the INC membership by relegating us to the four corners
of our home. In short, we were in an actual state of detention, never
mind that we were being detained in our own home;
28. On the following day, 17 July 2015, Friday, Radel Cortez came
to our house. I was present and within earshot while Cortez sweettalked my son, Isaiah Samson, into surrendering his phone. My son, who
had been under training to become an INC minister himself, saw
through Cortez scheme and managed to evade his deceitful tactics.
Eventually, my son relented and Cortez succeeded in confiscating my
son's cellphone and laptop;
29. Later that same morning, the Sanggunian sent over an
employee to confiscate my service vehicle;
30. Later still that same day, the Sanggunian ordered the
disconnection of our local phone line (PABX) service.;
31. On the 18th of July 2015, Saturday, Mathusalem Pareja and
Rodelio Cabrera, without prior notice or appointment, came to our
house to collect me to attend a meeting at the Sanggunian office.
When I asked them about the nature and purpose of the whole affair,
they casually told me that the Sanggunian required my presence. I
initially offered to go to the venue on my own; however, Pareja and
Cabrera sternly refused by saying I had no choice but to go with them.
This incident further convinced me that I was not only being advised to
stay home, I was also supposed to go with them anywhere upon orders
of the Sanggunian. The Sanggunian was actually and openly detaining
my family and myself. This made my family and me feel no different
from a common criminal who is under arrest and being taken to attend
court hearings, or anywhere for that matter, by armed policemen;
32. The Sanggunian for its part did not miss out on this one either.
That same day, my wife was supposed to go to the grocery store to
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replenish our stock of food and other necessaries at home. And so when
my wife and son tried to go out of the house and leave the compound
for this lawful purpose, armed guards sternly refused them passage out.
The guards, informed them that Radel Cortez instructed them not to
allow any member of my household to leave the compound;
33. Meanwhile, I was brought to the Sanggunian office in Central
to face all eight (8) of its members yet again. There, the Sanggunian
interrogated for me several hours; as well as repeatedly and forcefully
insisted that I was Antonio Ramirez Ebanghelista. They did not even
bother to show me any evidence, by way of documents or testimonies
of witnesses, which would pin me down to their accusations. They just
forcefully uttered their accusations as if hoping that the constant
repetition and hammering would eventually make me say the same
things and admit to their accusations. They did not listen to any of my
pleas. I realized at that very moment that they were no longer trying to
hide their dastardly scheme, they had positively identified me to be
responsible, and had condemned me to be punished for whatever it was
they were accusing me of. It was then that I actually feared for the safety
of the lives of my family;
34. Finally, to my relief, they tired of repeated accusations which
produced little or no effect. They then forced me to write a statement
confessing my supposed guilt and to identify the names of ministers,
both local and abroad, whom they believed to Ebanghelistas sources
of all the information used in his blogs;
35. Since I was not Ebanghelista, I really did not know what to
write. I only hoped that writing something would calm them down long
enough for me to plan what to do to extract ourselves from what
seemed to me to be certain death. So I decided to do as they wanted. I
wrote a statement in long hand, which contained statements and
allegations so contradictory and ridiculous that anybody reading it
would clearly realize it would serve no purpose but to foil the
Sanggunians evil schemes. I, however, named certain ministers and
members who actually did tell me about the Sanggunians corrupt
practices. Those I had named have either since been expelled from the
INC or do not care telling the truth because, again, everyone knew the
truth about the Sanggunian anyway. To my relief, the gullible burly
antagonists immediately liked what they read and took my statement
into their custody. They did not give me a receiving copy of that
statement;

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36. Immediately after that stressful and bizarre incident, the

Sanggunian ordered a driver to bring me home. I was then reminded
that my family and I were absolutely prohibited from going out;
37. On 20 July 2015, Monday, in the morning, my cousin, Rosario
Tuliao came to visit me. This visit had been pre-arranged more than a
week before. She and my wife were supposed to go to Caritas that day.
However, my cousin was neither allowed entry into the compound nor
allowed to see me. She was not even allowed to speak to us;
38. That same morning, I told the Sanggunian members, who
regularly came by the house to ensure that we were still in detention,
that my wife had just very recently gotten a heart pacemaker and that
she was not feeling well. I informed them that all the tension and
anxiety of the last few days had caused so much strain on her body and
mind. Her blood pressure was constantly high and was irritable and
fidgety as a result of lack of sleep. Also, her pacemaker was scheduled
for calibration that same day. She therefore needed to see her doctor
to ensure her heart was in fine condition. To our great dismay, the very
same members of the Sanggunian who ordered our detention casually
told her that she could not be allowed to leave the compound for
whatever reason. Instead, they brought with them Dr. Leni Soriano, a
resident general practitioner at the New Era Hospital, to examine my
wife;
39. Dr. Soriano found that my wife was suffering from high blood
pressure and gave her some medicine for it. However, she did not give
any opinion or advice in regard of the condition of my wifes heart and
its pacemaker. It was of course expected as Dr. Soriano was not qualified
to make any such opinion and advice, being only a general practitioner
herself;
40. In the afternoon of that same day, my wifes niece, Edna
Canlas, came to visit her and asked Mathusalem Pareja if she could take
my wife to the doctor. This was also nonchalantly denied;
41. This really worried us even more because we had just then
realized that these greedy liars had not only intended to detain us. They
had in fact readied themselves to allow or even cause the deaths of my
entire family so only their shameless and immoral schemes stayed
under wraps;
42. Nevertheless, my family and I decided not to reveal to our
captors the fact that we had begun seriously fearing for our lives.
Instead, We complained to the Sanggunian that the guards, along with
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other men armed with high-caliber rifles, had constantly prohibited my

wife and son from buying groceries or even leaving our house;
43. On 21 July 2015, Tuesday, at around 6 AM, Helen Pareja, wife
of the Sanggunians Mathusalem Pareja, came to our house and asked
us what groceries we needed, saying she would buy them herself in our
behalf. Later that morning at 10:30 AM, Major Quilang, who is an active
member of the Philippine National Police; a graduate of the Philippine
Military Academy; and the current head of security for the Central
Temple, delivered the groceries at our home;
44. On 22 July 2015, Wednesday at around 6:00 AM, Helen Pareja
came to our home yet again, asking what groceries we needed. Then at
5:00 PM of the same day, Major Quilang delivered the groceries. This
was something my family and I thought was both hilarious and pathetic:
Funny because a PNP Major is actually reduced to doing tasks like
delivering groceries to us; and pathetic, for the very same reason but
seen from the point of view of the PNP Major. I also noticed that even
after he had accomplished his task of delivering groceries to our home,
Major Quilang would stay in front of our home, inside his vehicle, along
with several other men, whom we presumed to be his support fire team.
45. This peculiar turn of events both puzzled and greatly worried
us, all at once. My family and I realized that with this new modus
operandi, the Sanggunian had found a sure way to ensure (a) that we
stayed under detention; (b) that we made no attempts to escape
detention; and (c) that the steady and constant intimidation kept our
hopes of ever coming out of this life-threatening situation alive
impossible.
46. In response, my family and I decided to stay close together and
in constant presence of each other.
47. At around 8:00 PM later that day, another Sanggunian
member, Ronald Esguerra, came by to tell me that I will be interviewed
on TV and that I was supposed to (1) deny reports of the abduction of
several other ministers, which by then had gone public through
broadcast and print media as well as through internet social networks;
(2) belie the threats made by the Sanggunian members and armed
men upon my family and me; and (3) deceive the public into believing
that we were not being held against our will but instead living happily
and quietly as a family inside the compound;
48. On 23 July 2015, Thursday at around 5:30 AM, I decided that I
had had enough of this illegal detention and repression. I began thinking
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of ways to escape custody of our captors. Eventually, We decided that

the only way to escape was to pretend to attend the service for that
day. The night before, my family and I stayed awake and prepared what
personal belongings we needed for our escape;
49. When the time came for us to implement our escape plan that
dawn of Thursday, we all boarded our vehicle, a Honda Civic Sedan,
which the Sanggunian had failed to confiscate. At the compound gate, I
asked the guards to let us out to attend the days worship service. But
our first attempt at freedom was simply foiled by the armed personnel
by merely saying No.
50. Unfazed by our initial failure, we persisted. Then committed
to make a break to freedom, we waited for an opportunity to escape.
Eventually, as the armed personnel became occupied with the vehicular
traffic and with calling some other persons on the phone, my son Isaiah
took the opportunity to gun the motor and speed off out of the
compound;
51. On that the same day at 5:00 PM, I held a media interview on
the controversy and on our illegal detention. While the interview was
going on, a certain Col. Pedroso, together with some policemen came
and introduced themselves to me, ostensibly to secure and protect me.
However, when the media people approached them, they hurriedly left;
52. Knowing that Col. Pedrosos foiled attempt at re-capturing us
would not deter the Sanggunian from pursuing us wherever it may lead
us, my family and I decided to stay in hiding from that day until today,
as of the filing of this complaint;
53. On 30 July 2015, Thursday, we got news that the Sanggunian
ordered the forcible opening of our residence, apparently to search and
seize all our belongings;
54. As of the filing of this complaint, the only contact we have with
the outside world is through our lawyers, whom we had engaged shortly
after our escape;
55. I, ISAIAS TALENS SAMSON, JR., therefore accuse all named
Respondents (members of the INC Sanggunian), with direct personal
participation, while cooperating and collaborating with each other, in
the harassment, illegal detention, threats and coercion upon my family
and me. I likewise accuse and hold responsible all the other persons
named in this complaint affidavit to be voluntarily complicit in the
execution of the illegal acts of the Sanggunian members;
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56. Finally, I am hereby demanding indemnification of all damages

actual, moral or otherwise from all Respondents named in this
complaint; as well as the compensation of all expenses my family had to
shoulder as a result of Respondents illegal acts.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I hereunto affix my signature this 25th day of
August 2015.

ISAIAS TALENS SAMSON, JR

Affiant/Complainant

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN to before me this ____ day of August 2015,

at Manila, Philippines.

I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT I HAVE PERSONALLY EXAMINED THE AFFIANT

AND AM PERSONALLY SATISFIED THAT HE HAS READ THE FOREGOING
COMPLAINT AFFIDAVIT AND UNDERSTOOD THE CONTENTS THEREOF.

_________________________________________

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