Liecaster steals name of Truthcaster, posts a slander and gets a shut-up

A man who stole the name of Preacher Eliseo Soriano goes online in NowPublic.com to humiliate the owner of that name but gets a warning for closure for possible slander.

Identified as Conrad J. Obligacion in Topix.net, this guy sporting the name, "Truthcaster" ironically has Eliseo Soriano as his object of destruction. Evangelist Soriano has been for years sporting the name, “Truthcaster” in his Bible Expositions online. From his many years of broadcasting truth, he is known as Truthcaster in many quarters.

The unidentified reporter with clear connections with the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) posted a story on January 21, 2009 titled “Behind Phillip Garcia’s libelous ramblings” in Nowpublic.com. Garcia earlier wrote in another news site, in Newsvine.com an article titled, “Behind the Iglesia ni Cristo’s King Maker Role: A Chain of Crimes and Mythical Numbers”.

The INC is publicly known for filing case after case against the preacher, using for witnesses people that Soriano had excommunicated from the Ang Dating Daan (ADD) group. The latest was that they had Soriano on the Interpol’s wanted list for “Sex Crimes.” Soriano had earlier excommunicated a gay from his congregation who was found out from investigations that he had raped some 14 of his subordinates. In retaliation, Daniel Veridiano, alias “Puto” filed a rape case against the preacher. This was when he had to leave Soriano’s group where he could no longer be accepted for flagrant disobedience to church doctrines.

The rape case filed by Puto against the preacher was dismissed by the regional court of Pampanga but for unknown reasons, it had been re-filed by Raul Gonzalez, the Secretary of Justice, himself who had no connections with the case. The INC is very influential with the Philippine government arising from its bloc voting practice. As a result, the INC endorsement is heavily sought for by politicians, local and national.

Soriano is widely known for exposing false prophets. When he has to discuss biblical truth, he is inevitably led to discuss the false teachings of so-called churches. One of those he had been criticizing wildly is the Iglesia ni Cristo who claims Christ is a human being aside from other claims, and collects tithes after tithes. As a result, many INC members have left their fold.

The reporter said, “After reading the piece I begin to understand that this Phillip Garcia does not have any idea whatsoever what libel is.” Garcia, however, was able to present as many sources as he could.

The unidentified INC supporter had posted Soriano’s picture and had captioned it “Interpol Wanted Poster” although it was Garcia he was supposed to deal with. He also posted Phillip Garcia’s picture.

NowPublic.com’s moderator, Amyjudd, however flagged the story and had required the unidentified reporter to improve his story. She said, "the site does not allow posts that slander someone personally" and that "we feel that the post indeed does just that." “Whatever your purpose is with this post, this may not be the way to go about it,” the moderator said.

On February 4, 2009, the moderator closed the thread saying that the poster failed to come up to expectations: “I am closing this comment thread due to the author’s lack of action to deal with the wrench on [his] post.”

Relative to this kind of work, in 2008, Rizalino L. Arrabis, another member of the Iglesia ni Cristo had been posting a hundred-and-one personal attacks against Soriano. They had been deleted, however, by Rob Walker, another moderator in NowPublic.com who had issued him a warning. Walker noticed Arrabis' penchant for starting his comments by twisting everyone's name, and then would follow up with some verbal venom.

Arrabis had been posting his attacks in relation to two posts looking for Eraño Manalo who was not responding to Soriano's challenge to a debate to defend his teachings. The story can be found in INC shouts: "Where is Sir Erano Manalo? and INC still shouts: "Where is Sir Erano Manalo?. Both of these can be found in NowPublic.com.