Show of Farce

By Artchil B. Fernandez

Bloc-voting sect, Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), flexed its muscle this week with a massive show of force. It mobilized 1.8 million members, more than half of its 2.8 million flock, in a mass action dubbed as the “National Rally for Peace.” INC spokesperson Edwil Zabala claimed the rally was not a political power play of the sect but a “very practical” and “moral” call to government officials.

The INC leadership publicly asserted that the rally is non-political. “For us, it wasn’t political,” Zabala declared when asked if their action was political. “The rally is not in support of this or that candidate, this or that political party,” he maintained.

While the rally was projected as non-political, the issue that triggered the rally is a highly explosive political issue – the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte. INC called for a rally last month when three impeachment cases were filed in the House for the removal of the vice president. When Bongbong Marcos (BBM) said he is not in favor of impeaching Sara Duterte, the INC immediately seized the opportunity to call for a mobilization against the impeachment of the vice president.

Officially, the INC said they organized the mass action to support BBM’s stance. The INC rally was “basically in support of what the President himself said,” Zabala rationalized the mass action. “We’re hoping that in echoing what he himself said, people would also accept it at face value,” he added.

Organizing a “non-political” rally against a very political act (impeachment) is counter-intuitive. The INC’s action betrayed its words. The contradiction exposed it.

This is not the first time the INC meddled in an impeachment process. On November 11, 2000, INC joined El Shaddai in a huge rally masked as a “prayer meeting” at Luneta Park to support the beleaguered Erap Estrada as he faced impeachment. Despite support from INC and El Shaddai, Erap Estrada was impeached.

In the 2012 impeachment of then Chief Justice Renato Corona, the INC also lent its strength to Corona by mobilizing hundreds of thousands in a rally against his impeachment. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Iglesia ni Cristo officials Dan Orosa and Resty Lazaro lobbied senators for the acquittal of Corona. Corona’s lead legal counsel, Serafin Cuevas, was an INC member. In the end, Corona was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. He was removed from his post, the first chief justice to be impeached and convicted.

Thus, it is not surprising that the INC is once again in the thick of action in another impeachment process, this time involving the Dutertes. As in the past, the religious sect is against impeachment. It masquerades its political act by making calls for “unity and peace,” hiding behind the veil of religiosity. In fact, the INC is advancing its own agenda amidst the political brawl between the Dutertes and the Marcoses.

Conflict between House Duterte and House Marcos is unpalatable to the INC that supported them in the 2022 election. The sect is unhappy that the Duterte-Marcos project has collapsed. It is now trying to piece together the broken pieces by forcing a “reconciliation” of the warring camps. This is the “unity” that the INC wants.

The INC is playing a delicate balancing act. Will the sect succeed in unifying the Dutertes and Marcoses using its bloc-voting strength as leverage? With the 2025 election around the corner, the INC is sending a powerful warning to both blocs.

Beyond the attempt to stitch back Humpty Dumpty, is the INC serious in bringing unity and peace to the nation? If the sect is truly earnest in forging unity and enduring peace among Filipinos, it should have used its political muscle to ensure that justice reigns supreme in the land.

Justice is the foundation of genuine unity and lasting peace. If the INC really desires peace, it should have made calls for justice. Past and present, the INC never made justice the theme of its “prayer rallies.” The sect maintained and remained silent on the injustices committed before and today. Never had the INC uttered a word about human rights violations – from the Marcos dictatorship up to the current regime of Marcos Junior. When thousands were slaughtered during Rodrigo Duterte’s war against illegal drugs, the INC was deaf, mute, and blind to the sufferings of the victims’ families.

Worse, members of the sect are complicit in the bloody and gory war on drugs. Retired police colonel Royina Garma revealed that the elder Duterte preferred INC members in the police force to implement his war on drugs. By opposing Sara Duterte’s impeachment and protecting the Dutertes, the INC may be trying to save its own skin.

INC has always used its bloc-voting strength to meddle and engage in politics. It usually couched its involvement as non-partisan or non-political despite the political nature of its action. What happened this week is not a show of force but a show of farce. It exposed the farcical position of the INC and unmasked its nefarious agenda.

The “rally for peace” of the INC is a big farce. There can be no peace without justice, accountability, and transparency. Holding public officials accountable for their actions is the real foundation of “unity and peace” in this country. As long as corrupt officials rob the national treasury, this land will never see genuine peace and unity. Shielding a public official from being held accountable for spending hundreds of millions of people’s money will only perpetuate corruption and bury the nation further in the quagmire of poverty, underdevelopment, and misery.

If the INC sincerely wants the Philippines to be a prosperous, developed, and progressive country – conditions for real unity and peace – it should use its bloc-voting prowess to elect honest, morally upright, and righteous leaders instead of using it to empower dynastic, opportunistic, greedy, inept, and corrupt political families.