Category: inday sara

Iglesia ni Cristo, 1986 to 2024

(Updated 13 Dec)

Natawa ako sa announcement ng INC agreeing with PBBM that the impeachment of VPSara is not a good idea, na siyempre ay ikinatuwa rin ng Duterte camp. It was like hitting two birds with one stone, like pamamangka sa dalawang ilog a la Sen. Imee.

Ayon sa census ng Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) noong 2020:

Of the 108,667,043 household population, nearly four fifths or 85,645,362 persons (78.8%) reported Roman Catholic as their religious affiliation. It was followed by Islam with 6,981,710 persons (6.4%), and Iglesia ni Cristo with 2,806,524 persons (2.6%). In 2015, these were also the top three religious affiliations in the country. https://psa.gov.ph/

INC is only the third largest religious community but unlike the Catholics and Muslims, INC practices bloc voting come elections, kaya naman masugid na liniligawan at sinusuportahan ng mga pulitiko.

Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) exercises a more extensive hold upon its 2.8 million followers. It tells them how to vote in every election and how to support or oppose specific laws and policies of the government. Members who fail to fall in line are sanctioned and, in the most serious cases, lose their membership.  https://www.manilatimes.net/

But history tells us that INC members are not always compliant, as In 1986.

… it was the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, who catapulted the INC, a minority church, to a position of parity with the dominant Catholic and the various Protestant churches. The Marcoses paid periodic visits to the INC headquarters in Diliman, Quezon City and were regular well-wishers at Erdie‘s birthday celebrations. It was also during the Marcos era that the Iglesia achieved phenomenal expansion.

The church stood by Marcos unto his twilight days. It directed members to vote for him in the 1986 elections and came close to seriously dividing its flock. Many members voted for Corazon Aquino, the Catholic Church‘s anointed. This prompted INC ministers to conduct a house-to-house visit of members to compel confessions of whom they voted.

“We did not want to complicate one error (voting for Aquino) with another, which is to lie about our vote,” an Iglesia member of over 20 years recalled. INC rules say that those who disobeyed the order should be expelled. But “they couldn’t do that because many voted for Cory,” said the INC member. “That would be a whole, big flock out of the church if you decide to excommunicate.”

Instead, church ministers asked errant members to write letters of apology to the church. https://web.archive.org/

In 1992 the INC endorsed Danding Cojuangco but he lost, came out 3rd of 7, bested by FVR and Miriam. But maybe only because Imelda ran, too, and came out 5th (besting Salonga and Laurel) which divided the Marcos vote and probably the INC vote?

In 1998 the INC endorsed winner Joseph Estrada but who was ousted in Edsa Dos in January 2001. April 25 to May 1, INC members gathered to protest Erap’s arrest for plunder and graft in what came to be known as Edsa Tres or Edsa Masa. Read “Church at the Crossroads” by PCIJ’s Malou Mangahas a year after.

A YEAR ago today, hundreds of thousands of poor Filipinos loyal to ousted President Joseph Estrada mounted a six-day vigil at the EDSA shrine.

Police officials say that most of the protesters—three in every four—were members of the pro-Estrada Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), a secretive, tightly organized church composed mainly of poor members.

… On May Day Eve last year, some 150,000 Estrada loyalists, many of them INC members, marched toward Malacañang Palace, rammed through police barricades en route, and for 12 hours, braved gunfire and truncheons with sticks, stones, and pure rage.

Hours before the rampage, Arroyo had appealed to INC leaders, who ordered their members to pull out of Edsa and return home. Many stayed, anyway. When the melee was over, four protesters were killed, three of them members of the INC; 113 were injured, including many church members.

Rigoberto Tiglao, who had just been named press secretary that week, recalled that Palace officials were surprised to learn that of the scores arrested, two-thirds were INC devotees. Said a Cabinet member who was privy to Arroyo’s negotiations with church leaders, “Walang isang salita ang Iglesia.(The church speaks with a forked tongue.) ”

… True, the INC is still bristling that Estrada, whom it supported in the 1998 and previous elections, had been ousted from office. “Minsan lang nanalo yung presidente namin, tinanggal pa nila (They ousted the only president who was supported by our church),” says an Iglesia member.
https://web.archive.org/

In the next four presidential elections, INC endorsed winners Arroyo, PNoy, Digong, and BBM-Sara. Which may be the basis of the propaganda that the Iglesia bloc vote determines winners, even if it is said to amount to just over a million votes. And even if it hasn’t quite worked for VPs — INC endorsed Mar in 2010 but he lost to Binay, and BBM in 2016 but he lost to Robredo.

In fact, it is a myth that INC’s endorsement guarantees a win.  INC usually chooses and announces its “annointed ones” about a week before election day, pag consistent at malinaw na sa opinion polls kung sino-sino ang most likely winners. Read Oscar P. Lagman‘s “The INC endorsement myth”

In 2004, INC delayed its endorsement of Gloria Arroyo until the week before election day when she emerged as being ahead of Fernando Poe Jr., the rumored preference of the sect, in the polls. In 2010, it switched from Sen. Manuel Villar to Sen. Noynoy Aquino five days before election day, when Aquino had dislodged Villar from being the topnotcher in the polls.

In 2019, it announced close to election day which 12 senatorial candidates it was endorsing. All were among those who occupied the top 12 spots in the last survey conducted by Pulse Asia that year.

An exception was its early endorsement of presidential candidate Joseph Estrada in the 1998 elections. That year, it endorsed Estrada for president months before the elections. This in spite of the fact that Estrada’s private life is the antithesis to the teachings of the religious sect. https://opinion.inquirer.net/

So, really, this INC drama of siding with both BBM and DDS against current moves to impeach VP Sara is a cease-and-desist signal based on an overblown sense of its influence that’s really just with regard to the two warring dynasties.

Recent meetings at INC central headquarters between INC executive minister Ka Eduardo Manalo and former President Rodrigo Duterte, accompanied by Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go on the one hand, and between Ka Eduardo and President Marcos, the first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and their son Rep. Sandro Marcos, on the occasion of the former’s 69th birthday, on the other, tend to show the unique position of the INC in relation to the two camps. https://www.manilatimes.net/

And the threat of holding a nationwide “peaceful rally” only reminds of 2001 when INC rallyists were so quickly agitated by politicians into that mad rush to the palace. TEKA. Ano ba talaga ang politics ng INC? For nation ba talaga or for INC only? Where does the Iglesia stand on China? And Antonio Contreras is right–kung makikialam ang INC sa pulitika, eh magbayad sila ng taxes; otherwise, wala silang karapatang makisawsaw in matters of the state.

Kung tutuusin pati, what’s one million votes when a Leni endorsement would could mean some 15 million. Good that Leni and the Liberals are staying away from the fray.

Impeachment fizz & frenzy

Strangely, the DDS people power attempt seems to have fizzled out with the filing of impeachment complaints vs VP Sara yesterday — I’m not sure now what gave me the impression that it would fuel DDS wrath instead and swell their numbers. O baka naman they’re waiting for instructions from Harry, Trixie, and Maharlika who might be waiting for instructions from the Digong and the VP who may still be rethinking their strategies in aid of regrouping now that the process has been kicked off not by the Speaker but by civil society.

Meanwhile, as Congress takes time to determine if the complaints are actionable, the debate now is whether or not this is a good time — if there’s time — for an impeachment trial in the Senate. Many say it’s too late, Pasko na, tapos, kampanya na for May 2025; besides, ayaw ni BBM. Just as many say it’s never too late, na kung talagang gusto ng HOR, magagawan ito ng paraan.

Listening to pro-impeachment spokesperson Leila de Lima with Ted Failon today as she warned of a Sara presidency should anything happen to BBM, it was like listening to an Akbayan political pundit perorating on similar concerns to his cohorts on mainstream and social media last week, seriously dreading a Duterte restoration even before 2028. I wonder if this is who Cito Beltran was referring to:

Last week, as I surfed news and commentary programs, jumping from one station to another, I could not help but notice that several radio and online commentaries seemed to sound alike. It was almost like people were reading from the same book. Out of curiosity, I started asking my friends in media if some PR person had been going around making a pitch against the Vice President or to pour fuel into the fire, so to speak.

The first person I asked immediately and unabashedly confirmed my suspicion about the similarity in talking points and that someone had reached out to him as well. This of course is nothing new. It is common knowledge that PR firms or experts do the rounds to get the media on board concerning an issue and position.

Some appeal to a shared view, others ask help as a personal favor, and the desperate or well-funded offer 30 pieces of silver, so to speak. What’s interesting is that the PR was not a PR but a political aspirant.  https://www.philstar.com/opinion

Political aspirant nga ba? O Akbayan PR? Maybe both. But in fairness, if we’re talking about the same person, he is incredibly well-informed of goings-on behind the scenes, past and present, even from afar, sabay disclaimer that he knows anything or has anything to do with events unfolding. Quite an operator he is, and very much in his element.

“Storm in a teacup” #SaraDrama

Nov 23.  “Don’t worry about my safety. I have talked to a person and I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM [Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke.”

Nov 25.  “Di ba pumalag nga ang buong bayan nang pinatay ng pamilya nila si Benigno Aquino Jr. (Didn’t the people fight back when they plotted the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.)?”

Nov 26.  “Ang hindi lang nagawa ni Ninoy … kaya hindi siya nakaganti … kasi hindi siya nagbilin. … But you know Benigno Aquino Jr. is not Sara Duterte. Ibang tao siya. Ibang tao din ako.”

All that from VP Sara in the run-up to November 27, when Ninoy would have turned 92, were he not assassinated by the Marcos military in broad daylight @ 50, just when he was finally of age to run for president under the Marcos constitution.

Few doubted that the dictator Marcos was the mastermind, simply because, like Cory said, once martial law was declared, nothing ever happened to Ninoy without the dictator’s approval, nothing! No one, Ver least of all, would have dared touch Ninoy without clearance from on high. It was also said that the dictator needn’t have given the order directly, that is, not in so many words, but merely indicated his wishes in other ways, perhaps a la Henry II in TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral: as in, who will rid me of this troublesome one… or some such similar expression of grim exasperation.

The Marcos camp has always denied that Marcos was the mastermind, but anyone who bothers to check out credible documented reports and court rulings and docus knows that the Marcoses and their allies are lying or simply don’t know the truth just because, let us remember, the OG Marcos was wily that way.  And now that the son has made it back to the Palace, thanks to the Dutertes, the one time napag-usapan ang Ninoy assassination was in the time of Imee‘s movie Martyr or Murderer (2023) where a lot of screen time was still spent “trying to establish Ferdinand, Sr.’s innocence with regard to the Aquino assassination.”

BUTCH FRANCISCO: Was that still necessary? Through the years, the nation seems to have been convinced that Ferdinand, Sr. had nothing to do with Ninoy’s death. A comedic scene in Martyr that shows chief household staff Elizabeth Oropesa playing detective summarizes what had become the scenario in the public mind – yes, the one that involves a blood relation as the mastermind behind Ninoy’s killing. https://www.pikapika.ph/

Yes, it was still necessary, it will always be necessary. ‘Ika nga ni Imelda, perception is real, truth is not — but only in her world. Perception of innocence that is based on lies has to be periodically reinforced, otherwise the believers are confronted with nothing but the truth.

The truth that VP Sara dared speak, salamat na rin, and thankfully not to paint herself as a Ninoy, because she’s nothing like Ninoy. Her claim of death threats I can believe, but her conditional death can’t be automatically attributed to the Marcoses without investigation and confirmation.

PBBM, to his credit, has been very measured in his responses, even if he seems to have flipflopped from palaban to pa-statesman.

PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE Nov 25 

The President said Duterte should be made accountable for her statements. Any assassination attempt against the President also raises concerns about the security of the nation and its citizens, he said.

Such criminal attempts should never be overlooked, the President added.

“Kung ganun na lang kadali ang pagplano sa pagpatay ng isang Presidente, papaano pa kaya ang mga karaniwan na mamayan? ‘Yang ganyang criminal na pagtatangka ay hindi dapat pinapalampas,” he said.

Interestingly echoing the people’s sentiments in 1983: “If he can do it to Ninoy, he can do it to any of us.”

Three days later,  Nov 28, as the Left and pinklawan social media pundits urged, nay, demanded, that Congress impeach the VP, now na! this purported message from “BBM” to Congress was leaked to media.

In the larger scheme of things, Sara is unimportant. So please do not file impeachment complaints. It will only distract us from the real work of governance which is to improve the lot of all Filipinos.

Today, the 29th, PBBM acknowledged sending the message and reiterated:

What will happen if someone files an impeachment? It will tie down the House [of Representatives], it will tie down the Senate, it will just take up time and for what? For nothing,” he added.

“None of this will help improve a single Filipino life,” he stressed. “As far as I’m concerned, it is a storm in a teacup.” https://philstarlife.com

Ang tanong, magpapapigil ba ang Konggreso? And will there be similar messages to the DOJ and the NBI to let the VP be? As in, dedma na lang? And let the people power attempt die a natural death?

The Left would be so disappointed, and maybe the DDS peeps daily gathering in EDSA, too, who seem to think that impeachment is what will bring huge crowds of Duterte supporters to the streets. But but but what fueled the huge rallies of 1986 was Cory’s nonviolent civil disobedience campaign and the wildly successful boycott of crony businesses that primed the people to stand as barricades and shield the military rebels from Marcos’s wrath. Parang this one is, has, nothing like that.

And then again, who knows. Here’s hoping BBM’s right and the “storm in a teacup” subsides quickly enough. If so, here’s to a viable tandem who can beat Sara and/or  Raffy Tulfo in 2028.

The Zuleika episode #QuadComm

It all escalated pretty fast. Wednesday the QuadComm cited VP Sara’s chief of staff Zuleika Lopez in contempt and ordered her detained in the Batasan until the next hearing day, Monday. Thursday night the VP not only visited but made arrangements to camp out at Cong Pulong’s office, in solidarity with beleaguered staff, as promised, if any be treated with, I mean cited in, contempt. Friday was all about Batasan security trying to convince the VP to leave Pulong’s office and just come back for regular visits, and the VP refusing and challenging the security officer to try and make her leave. Friday night, the House Committee on good governance and public accountability met via zoom and decided to order the transfer of Zuleika to the Women’s Correctional Facility, which apparently drove Zuleika into a panic attack severe enough to see her ferried from hospital to hospital, Veteran’s to St. Luke’s to Veteran’s, over the next 12 hours, punctuated by the VP’s running rants about corrupt and inefficient government officials, especially congressmen, the speaker, and the president, with threats of assassination thrown in, that’s being taken very seriously indeed.

Sounds like another ground for impeachment. Makes me wonder. Did Sara unwittingly walk into that trap? Did the QuadComm anticipate that holding Atty Lopez in contempt would bring Sara running, and ranting, to a point of no return? Or was it the QuadComm that walked into a trap, failing to anticipate that the VP would go for broke, level up her attacks on the BBM admin for scheming to impeach her and make charter change happen, grab at the chance to remind the public of the Speaker’s presidential ambition and the First Couple’s complicity and other alleged crimes, perhaps to push them into initiate impeachment proceedings before they have the numbers in the Senate?

LOL, I’m reaching, I know. But it’s that kind of situation where we know that a lot is going on behind the scenes that we’re not privy to and anything is possible. Certainly that order to transfer Zuleika to a correctional was meant to agitate–was it cleared with the Speaker and BBM? Puwede namang sa Veterans na agad, given her chronic back pain made worse by that day-long grilling by the QuadComm. It would have been a show of kindness, not of weakness. Unless the point was to break Zuleika (a la Garma?) nga ba?

Whatever. Tomorrow’s (final?) hearing promises to be a blast, whichever way it goes. Testy times.