{"id":60483,"date":"2015-09-01T16:04:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T08:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=60483"},"modified":"2015-09-01T16:04:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T08:04:09","slug":"expelled-ministers-camp-fears-whitewashing-in-inc-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/09\/01\/expelled-ministers-camp-fears-whitewashing-in-inc-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Expelled minister\u2019s camp fears whitewashing in INC case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The 7,000 seater Iglesia ni Cristo Central Temple in Quezon City (Photo from Wikipedia<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima remained mum on the government\u2019s alleged agreement with the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) leaders on Monday.<\/p>\n

But still with no prosecutor assigned in the criminal charges against INC\u2019s Sanggunian, the church\u2019s highest administrative council, expelled minister Isaias Samson Jr. feared that there may be a \u2018whitewash\u2019 in the Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) preliminary investigation on his complaint. His camp then urged the President and De Lima to disclose the details of the purported deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the nature of this agreement? What are its conditions and terms? It is our client who had unintentionally set off these events by filing his case, yet somehow we have not been included in this so-called agreement. Assuming of course there is one,\u201d Samson\u2019s lawyers, Trixie Cruz-Angeles and Ahmed Paglinawan said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two things you need to do\u2026 speaking as part of the body you call your bosses. First is to be transparent with your agreement. Tell us whether or not you\u2019ve sold our client down the river or tell us if you haven\u2019t. But you need to disclose this to us. A criminal case is not a political pawn. The law provides that it cannot be compromised. The president can grant pardons and issue clemency and amnesty. But you do not have the power to refuse prosecution,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Cruz-Angeles and Paglinawan also demanded reassurance from the government that their complainant\u2019s case would undergo a due process.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must guarantee our client a fair hearing at preliminary investigation. The fear now is that given the so-called agreement, a finding of \u2018no probable cause\u2019 to make this nightmare go away for the INC\u2019s Sanggunian is a very real possibility,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Samson, his wife Myrna Dionela and son Isaias Jr. earlier filed a complaint against the INC council for serious illegal detention, harassment, grave threats and coercion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima remained mum on the government\u2019s alleged agreement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":56988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95,4377],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-60483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","category-public-probe","tag-rewrite","mauthors-cyra-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}