CRY FOR JUSTICE
Marcos Mataro killing: serious blow against freedom of expression, religion
It was like any normal Sunday morning on April 27, except for the cloudy sky and mildly gushing of wind that was threatening for rain to fall. At the North Luzon Expressway toll gate in San Simon, Pampanga, at past 10 am, six gunshots, whose bang was mildly tempered by the wind that seems the incident’s tireless witness, tear the calm environ of this quiet area.
Few seconds more, some head turned. A little noise that was evolving to be a commotion soon pulled some feet and swayed them to trace what was believed to be a crime scene.
Unknowingly to these people who rushed their way to the scene, the person lying in the ground, dead, was Marcos Mataro, one of the main hosts of an investigative religious program on UNTV 37.
Witnesses’ speak
Some witnesses who gathered around the dead body frantically called the police. Some stayed behind so no one touches the victim in order to preserve every bit of evidence to let the police conduct their exhaustive investigation. Many in the crowd already felt the dead man lying, who was wearing a white tshirt, brown cargo shorts, white socks and rubber shoes, will not need an ambulance but a funeral service.
It didn’t take long until the investigating team called SOCO arrived, filed and documented the bloody murder. Witnesses asked by the police said they last saw the 39-year old Mataro waiting for a Manila-bound bus at around 10:30 am at the NLEX toll gate in San Simon, Pampanga but his life was shortly cut by the gun bang.
Janine Infante, one of the witnesses, told police that she saw the tragic killing incident. Though also afraid for her life, she recounted, however, the gunshot she overheard came after a blue motorcycle, carrying two masked gunmen, ascended the toll exit.
“While trying to escape, the motorcycle malfunctioned so they [suspects], upon seeing a bus coming, immediately eloped and rode the Baliwag transit bus, going towards San Fernando, Pampanga,” Infante recalled.
Another witness, Rey Velasquez, who with few other people who raced toward the area after hearing the gunshot, said when they saw the man lying on the ground, they called the cops. Tucked with others who was then crowding the killed TV host, they felt that “they cannot just touch the body” to let the police conduct their own probe. Until the police arrived.
UNTV 37's "Ito Ang Balita" Police Report (29-Apr-2008)
From the eyes of these witnesses, the gunmen planted six bullets in the TV host’s forehead, eye, neck and chest, that successfully folded his life. Velasquez, speaking over a television interview, said “... the shot took two in the chest, one in the eye, one in the nape, (and) one under the ear.”
According to investigation reports, the gunmen used a 9-mm Caliber and mercilessly cast six bullets. Just six bullets and enough to successfully shut the TV host’s mouth from further speaking on television. Forever.
The near-perfect, near-smooth crime was almost botched by the malfunctioning motorcycle but they were saved in convenience by the arriving bus, obviously since it was a toll gate, who carried them out past the clutches of justice. At least for their temporary reprieve.
Threats for Speaking Up
In D'X-MAN television show, a short moniker that means “The Ex-Manalista” or former members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo of Manalo (INC), Mataro was one of the main hosts who haunted his former religion, the INC with his sometimes humorous take and sardonic commentaries about the erroneous and wicked system and alleged crimes of this sect, backed by pamphlets, magazines, and even audio recordings of the voice of this sect’s executive minister, Eraño Manalo, to prove his statements and claims.
One of the controversial audio recordings that was repeatedly aired in D'X-MAN was about Manalo’s attack against his workers and ministers that allegedly had the leader saying no man was standing in the faith, and almost all are wicked.
Sermons of Eraño Manalo having words to his workers
Not merciless, but still considered a devilish merciful act. “Mataro was the most prominent figure in the show who was most hated and vilified out of the different threats for speaking up, he was even threatened to be skinned to death while alive,” his D'X-MAN co-host Arnel Sangle said. “Another example of text messages we are receiving is that ‘if you want, we can give one for an example (skinning to death) to you.’”
Fellow program co-host, Jarell De Jesus agreed. She confirmed the numerous threats they are receiving from the show, such as “‘You will not stay long this year!’ That is why it is hard to think of any other group who’s behind this, but we suspect it was those from the sect where we came from.”
ADD members, Marcos Mataro beaten-up by a crowd of INC members in Apalit, Pampanga
Lydia Manuyag, a co-host in D’X-MAN and former national treasurer of the INC, said the threats she, together with her peers are receiving are clear sign of desperation of the other camp, referring to their former religion. “Through text messages, we are threatened … such as ‘We will skin you alive’ and ‘we will be beheading you.’”
Manuyag, recounting her former tragic experience in the hands of her former affiliations, underscored her former religion mean it. Not a joke. With eyes that showed the sleepless nights she sustained over the incident, she told an interview on UNTV that threats she received from her former religion when she get baptized in ADD continues. Among these threats, she said, was the 24-hour countdown for her to return to the INC central.
“After I transferred in ADD, we were showered with bullets in our home,” said Manuyag, who has grown used already to the threats she was receiving since her momentous and surprising testimonies in the ADD program in SBN 21.
On April 18, 2003, their home in Christianville subdivision, in Rizal was sprayed with bullets which put her husband, Marciano in critical condition after given eight gunshots. Miraculously, Marciano survived and testified of the incident in the ADD program.
Even prior to his demise, two years ago, Mataro, together with fellow D'X-MAN co-hosts figured in another similar life-threatening incident in a fast food chain in Apalit, Pampanga.
There, what was supposed to be a meeting only with a family relative who was still with Mataro’s former religion, turned nasty as a heated discussion from some uninvited former INC members was being provoked against them. While Mataro and his fellow hosts attempted to leave to avoid further confrontations, it was punctuated by the beating up of these hosts. Some of their supporters were hurt as well. A certain Mr. Ferma, a legitimate INC minister, led the beatings.
Enlightenment came
It was really his transferring from INC to the ADD which was found to be the main motive behind the killing, follow up probe of the incident revealed. Police Officer Francisco Cortez, chief Police of San Simon, believes that the victim’s transferring of the religion has something to do with the incident.
According to fellow co-host of the program, Mataro received different death threats ever since he left the former religion and became the host of the program.
When he was still hosting the program, Mataro finds humor while being critical of the very serious and dangerous anomalies in the religious practices and beliefs of this sect. Perhaps he knew too much than his mouth could utter in the show and the only way to silence him is putting him in a coffin.
No wonder, Mataro was a former minister, and he was also evangelical ministry graduate from the INC-founded New Era University, who after having heard and found Bro. Eli Soriano, the Ang Dating Daan television program host, to be a true and sincere preacher and religious leader, left his former religion. Soriano, as he is popularly known in the Philippines, is also the Presiding Minister of the Members Church of God International (MCGI).
When he left his former religion, and having been a zealous and diligent member of the MCGI, Mataro joined the ministerial ministry of the Church of God and since then has held sensitive functions until in 2004, he became host of D'X-MAN, a program that was conceived and produced to counter Ang Tamang Daan, which was a program by the INC broadcast over NET 25, meant to discredit the Ang Dating Daan (ADD or The Old Path in English) and its host, Bro. Eli.
When his other D'X-MAN co-hosts are to be asked, they said he (Mataro) may be too serious a threat for speaking up as the weekly baptisms in his new-found faith, the MCGI, would attest. There are more and more members of the INC who are approaching them and confiding with them their intention to join the religion lead by Soriano, amidst the threats each of the D'X-MAN hosts are receiving.
Human Rights Under Attack
Immediately after the news reached the office of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), the organization that helps protect and advocate media responsibility and press freedom, its incumbent president Jose Torres condemned on Monday the murder of the TV host.
Now counted as the second local media man to be killed this year and the 56th since Gloria Arroyo became president in 2001, Mataro’s death is another serious blow against press freedom and free expression of religion.
On Tuesday morning, UNTV 37, announced that it was able to raise one-million peso to be awarded to those who will provide information about the killers of the TV host. Station Manager Jay Sonza said financial support from sympathizers, friends and kind souls are pouring in to raise the cash reward.
As if a consolation that his death has sparked fresh interest from socio-civic groups, NUJP and other concerned citizens, who hope to provide protection, and even find solution for the spate of killings of journalists, media men and broadcasters in the country in recent years, this tragedy but heightened the public’s awareness that journalists are killed for fighting for the truth to be revealed.
In his passing, Marcos Mataro’s fearless and unabashed expose when he was still alive, except that he is not after corrupt politicians and government scams, but of religious systems, now only earned a much bigger credibility, successfully sending a strong message about the sinister nature of the former religion that he was unabashedly and fearlessly exposing.
In a way, his fight was little victory earned, recalling in mind the little David getting the giant Goliath piqued. Even if it means one’s own life. A sweet death. After all, what is life on earth if not well spent in standing in the path of Truth.
D’X-MAN program hosts cry for justice on the slaying of Marcos Mataro