Category: robredo

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.

Bracing for May 9 #Halalan2022

The Leni-Kiko monster rallies continue to draw impressively bigger and bigger crowds, and a number of credible political pundits continue to believe that Leni can still pull off a win despite Marcos Jr.’s lead in the surveys. That is, IF we take advantage of the palpable momentum and push even harder toward including the fringes in this movement for change.

May oras pa, ang pahiwatig ni Ronnie Holmes ng Pulse Asia kay Karen Davila sa ANC News noong April 8.

KAREN DAVILA. Historically speaking, based on your experience, have you seen a dramatic shift in surveys in, like, 30 days?

HOLMES. I would say that it’s possible, it’s really quite possible. It would really depend on how each candidate would really change their strategy, intensify their campaign. The last 30 days is like the last 2 minutes of a basketball game. The other team might be leading 12 to 15 points, the last 2 minutes is a crucial thing. If someone shoots five 3-pointers, the game… it’s tied.

So it’s not a question of whether the race is done, you still have 30 days. Those 30 days of campaign will be crucial. It might be best for some candidates to look back in term of their messages, how it can be refined and trying to escalate activities that will generate public support for their candidacy.

Parang Leni-Kiko camp mismo ang pinaparinggan ni Holmes, at sana nakikinig sina Bam Aquino, sana they go beyond the bongga rallies, do the rounds of public markets and factories, apart from house-to-house ikot-sa-barangay.  Ninoy Aquino’s campaign strategy in 1965 when he ran for and placed 2nd (of 8) in the senatorial race, as told by Nick Joaquin in The Aquinos of Tarlac (1983) pages 313-316, might inspire, kahit last minute.

On another front, La Salle Prof. Julio Teehankee told Karmina Constantino in a Dateline: Philippines interview [ANC 4 April] that he  thinks it’s time for something drastic, which sounds like Davila’s “dramatic shift”.

TEEHANKEE.  The frontrunner is sitting pretty just waiting for Election Day to happen, so unless something drastic, you know, some major earthshaking event will happen between now and Election Day…  Time is running out, and he has a comfortable lead. So something must happen to move the needle in favor of those challenging the frontrunner.

KC. Is that pointing to some sort of consolidation, and now is the time to do it?

TEEHANKEE.  It’s now or never. I think those who are seriously thinking of the future of the country should [follow] the lead of similar individuals in history. They must do a Day Laurel or even a Mar Roxas at this point.

Unfortunately Isko, Ping, and Manny do not seem to be up to the sacrifice. And it’s understandable. VP Doy Laurel may have later regretted giving way to Cory in ’86 because he and Cory didn’t get along at all post-EDSA, and he ended up sidelined and ridiculed. I bet Mar Roxas regretted giving way to PNoy, settling for a VP run and waiting for his turn, when he lost to VP Binay in 2010 and then to President Duterte in 2016.  Not very encouraging outcomes there.

TEEHANKEE. Based on the 2016 exit poll of SWS, 54.2 % [of voters] decided only around this time, and a significant 18 % decided on Election Day itself.

Perhaps that’s what’s giving hope to every candidate that s/he will be the chosen one of a majority of voters still deciding at this point in time.  But one can’t win on hope, not when these votes are going at least 4 ways, and not when the frontrunner has been working on a win for a full decade.

Hopefully this Holy Week finds Isko, Ping, and Manny accepting the fact that VP Leni is far ahead of them all, ahead enough to have a real chance of beating Marcos Jr. as she did in 2016, but only if the three throw their support behind her like true gentlemen and statesmen and patriots would—which is exactly how Doy Laurel is remembered, never mind the petty bickering with Cory after.

Surely the three do not wish to go down in history as 2022’s batch of would-be presidents who did not really care about nation. When this is over, win or lose, there will be a reckoning.

Meanwhile, the world that watched and applauded us when we ousted Marcos in ’86 is again watching, this time aghast that another Marcos is running for president and looking like he might win despite his father’s many crimes. And they’re wondering what happened, how could we let this happen, didn’t we see this coming?

I daresay we didn’t think they would go this far. I daresay we were counting on some remorse and some delicadeza on their part, for nation’s sake. Alas. Iba talaga ang mga Marcos.

Last two minutes #Halalan2022

Imelda Marcos, 92, must be on tenterhooks.  We haven’t heard from her for a while now, but I like to think that she knows, sees, hears what’s going on, and that if the surveys are to be believed, tila panalo na si Marcos Jr., Oplan Balik-Palasyo soon to be accomplished, she must be so excited.

But who knows. Ang dami pang puwedeng mangyari. In Imelda’s place  I’d be on some happy anti-anxiety pill by day, and a sosyal -zepam by night, to see me through these next 60 days or so just because, you know, what if?  What if may talo pala, just like in 2016.

What if the kakampinks are right, that the monster crowds of VP Leni’s rallies are a sign that there’s hope of overtaking Marcos Jr. in  the surveys?

And what if other kakampinks are right who simply disbelieve surveys that find Marcos Jr. leading by a comfortable margin … who shrug off the big survey outfits as “bayaran” [as in “False Asia”] … who have this romantic notion that these surveys aren’t tapping the true pulse of the electorate (samples too small, not asking the right questions, atbp) … and others who think that survey respondents are just afraid to speak the truth but dare blurt out Junior’s name just to be pasaway.

What if, indeed.  What if Leni could still win it?  Then the current surge of engaged energy among young creatives aching itching to help, networking across communities, now moving on their own [funded by like-minded titos and titas] to both level up and level down campaign rhetoric in social media and on the ground – especially on the ground, including far-flung LGUs where only Marcos-Duterte posters are to be seen – can only help win this. Hope springs eternal.

Wishful thinking ‘yang balitang the Marcos campaign is losing steam, running out of money even. Aint gonna happen. Mas malamang na bumubuwelo sila for the final push in the last three weeks when they they pull out all the stops — all systems go, all hands on deck, all resources mobilized.

Expect no miracles except that which we can make happen if we act as one in these “last two minutes” when every effort, big and small, is focused on targeting that 31% that we need to convert to our side.  One major concerted action for the good of the whole, beyond what was done the past four months by the official campaign, might surpass expectations.

Sana magulantang natin si Imelda.

#yellowpink

i am yellow and i am pink.  yellow for ninoy, cory, and EDSA.  pink for leni, a no to the sad yellow politics of the liberal party.

pink and yellow go together, literally n figuratively.  they are natural colors that we see everywhere, though never before so blooming everywhere.

meanwhile it’s good to remember, and to talk about, EDSA.  what did we do right, what did we do wrong.  how could we have done it better.

#yellowpink #b4i4get