PHILIPPINE Sports Commissioner Eric Loretizo refuted claims of the Save Bacolod Movement (SBM) tagging him as a “protector” of Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella and called the group’s convenor, Romy Niere, a “pathological liar.”

“Making lies apparently is a way of life for Niere. He may end up to be the biggest embarrassment to the global ministry, which is based in Harbor City, California, that he represents before the year ends,” Loretizo said in a press statement.

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“Certainly, the good men and women of Sowers International are not aware of Niere’s highly partisan activities here in the Philippines; that he is a peon of patronage politics, and earns his keep locally being an attack dog, a mudslinger, a blind follower, not of God’s Church, but of architects of deceptions,” Loretizo added.

Loretizo’s statement was an offshoot of the SBM move calling for his resignation from the PSC “due to lack of trust and confidence.”
Niere earlier said that Loretizo has turned his back to his commitment of serving the interest of the Filipino people as a government official when he publicly defended Puentevella in the plunder case filed by PSC against the solon.

“Niere, standing pat on his new calling, only shows his expertise in sowing intrigues and twisting facts to fiction,” Loretizo said.

SBM earlier dared Loretizo to leave his post out of delicadeza, saying “as a government official Loretizo is expected to stand by the decision of the PSC to charge Puentevella with plunder because of the solon’s failure to liquidate the funds released to the Bacolod Seagames Organizing Committee (Basoc) in 2005.”

Loretizo lashed back at Niere saying that the series of paid print advertisements he had placed for many weeks now, prove that his black propaganda operations and political activities are well-funded.

“I pray that the Sowers International founder and pioneer, who is a well respected Church leader in the United States, will find out Niere’s illegal activities very soon. I pray further that despite his persistent lies and hard-to-break habit of misleading Bacolenos and Negrenses, his Church will still embrace and forgive him,” Loretizo said.

“Niere, clearly, is passing the buck, as it was his obsession to already render judgment against Basoc through trial by publicity and forum shopping, when there are proper venues tasked to establish the facts of the case,” Loretizo said.

“True to form, Niere, whose notoriety of twisting facts is a public knowledge in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental, claimed that I have already cleared Puentevella in previous interviews. The big question is: Who am I to do that? I am not the court. Neither am I the Department of Justice nor the Office of the Ombudsman,” Loretizo stressed.

Loretizo said that when he decided to come out publicly last Oct. 30, it was because “I cannot tolerate the lies, innuendoes and tons and tons of half-truths that Niere had been throwing at Basoc in media interviews for the glory of people he vowed to serve, either they are right or wrong.”

He added: “I broke my silence as Niere had dragged me into the picture by misrepresenting the facts, showing usual inter-office memoranda I had signed and claimed these documents “showed there was conspiracy”. When the Court has yet to appreciate Basoc papers, Niere already had rendered judgment against Basoc.”

“And now that I am out to defend my name and the dignity of my family, Niere turned into a cry baby; he cried wolf and even threatened me of an investigation by none other than the PSC Chairman. Clearly, Niere cannot take the fact, because he thought he is God that people he attacks and maligns also have to seek redress and have every right to counter every lie he makes,” said the former secretary-general of Bacolod SEA Games Organizing Committee,

Loretizo said that contrary to what Niere wants to make it appear, he never denied his connection with Rep. Puentevella.

“It is also public knowledge that the Congressman recommended me to my current post at the PSC and I will be forever grateful to him and to the members of his family, who had considered me and the rest of the congressional staff as their extended family,” Loretizo said.

To set the record straight, we don’t call the Congressman as “boss”, we simply address him either as “sir”, “Newks” or “Monico”, Loretizo said, adding that Monico is a public servant, not a “boss”.

“And when I joined the PSC in 2007, I also stopped my professional engagement with the Office of the Congressman. It was a privilege to serve him as consultant for six years (2001-2007). I don’t deny that,” he noted.

“I pray that Niere will soon see the light, and also make public who are the political forces behind all his lies, deceptions and black propaganda operations,” Loretizo said.

Loretizo added: “Since Niere is doing the contrary, especially in sowing the seeds of lies—the Sowers International must be spared from further embarrassment by conducting a thorough investigation of the political activities of one of its ministers, who is currently serving as a stray dog of political wannabes.”

Niere, as a US-based staff of Sowers International supposedly, must secure permission from the ministry’s Founder and Executive Director Gwynn Lewis for his partisan and black propaganda work in Negros Occidental, Loretizo said.

“He must have the decency to step down and leave the ministry and forget missionary work if lying and sowing deception will continue to be his preoccupation,” Loretizo said, adding that Niere had long renounced his Filipino citizenship and is actually assigned, as shown in the website’s Missionaries Button, as missionary for Thailand and Southeast Asia.” (George M. De La Cruz)