The lawyer of an expelled members of the Iglesia ni Cristo on Tuesday blamed the church leadership for the loss of a driver of Felix Nathaniel “Ka Angel” Manalo, who died of cardiac arrest inside the INC compound Monday night.
In an interview, lawyer Trixie Angeles said Benjamin R. Arellano Jr., 50, passed away at the house of Manalo and his sister Lolita “Lottie” Hemedez without any medical attention.
“Three weeks ago, I, along with two doctors, went to the INC compound upon learning that Arellano was sick, but we were prevented from entering the place. Junjun [Arellano] was feeling ill lately. Last Monday night, he suddenly collapsed. Despite best efforts, he could not be revived,” Angeles told The Standard.
“He died at the World City hospital. His cause of death was cardiac arrest,” Angeles said.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Rep. Ronaldo Zamora has come to the defense of the INC through an online post, explaining that the INC could not be accused of violating the separation of church and state despite supporting candidates during elections.
In a Facebook post, the Bar topnotcher explained that the constitutional provision that provided the separation of church and state was instituted “not to protect the people from a church with the powers of state, but to protect churches from the powers of the state.”
Zamora, who also graduated valedictorian of his UP Law class, said this constitutional pillar sought to prevent the government from subverting religious denominations and institutions, weakening their influence, and “outright suppressing them when the moment is right.”
“Never forget this: what the state can do to one church, it can do to all the others,” Zamora warned.
While Zamora conceded that “a church has no business concerning itself with state business,” he emphasized that the state had “absolutely no business at all interfering with a church.”
Officials of the INC are facing detention-related cases pending before the Department of Justice and the Court of Appeals.
Church leaders and members have come under heavy criticism, particularly from netizens, for insisting on the “separation of church and state.”