For a couple of days now, EDSA has ground to a halt under the weight of an Iglesia ni Cristo mobilization that its leadership has dressed in the language of “transparency, accountability, justice, and peace”. What it really is is a religious organization deploying its most valuable political asset – its capacity to mount an on-command bloc vote not to defend a moral principle, but to shield one of its own from a non-bailable plunder case.
This is not, at its core, a church-and-state separation issue. To be fair to INC, it has not pretended otherwise. It has long pursued a tradition of trading political endorsements for access, openly bargaining its vote as a bloc with whichever camp offers the better terms.
But what makes this ongoing EDSA mobilization different, and more insidious, is its core agenda. This time the INC is attempting to weaponize its influence against the machinery of accountability itself, specifically in the case of one of its own – Senator Rodante Marcoleta. Marcoleta is facing a non-bailable plunder complaint recommended by the Ombudsman over alleged campaign-related donations. It is a procedural step, a due process case. Certainly not a verdict. INC’s response was not to let the legal process play out but to put roughly 15,000 warm bodies on the country’s busiest highway as a political statement. The subtext here is: touch our man, and we shut down Metro Manila.
INC’s bloc-voting tradition has always functioned as a way of guaranteeing that whichever administration wins, the church retains a seat at the table. What the EDSA rally shows is the next evolution of that strategy, of using the bloc not just to elect friendly officials after the fact, but to actively intervene in real time to protect an ally from consequences, and in doing so, to position itself favorably ahead of the next electoral cycle.
The INC is betting on a potential return of Duterte-aligned political forces to Malacañang that it can leverage for appointments, policy concessions, or simple non-interference, regardless of which camp ultimately prevails. This is patronage politics wearing vestments, and it deserves to be named as such.
It is clear in the messaging of the protest, with the argument that Marcoleta is being charged over a private citizen’s donation to his campaign kitty instead of the government focusing on flood control anomalies.
Neither point survives critical scrutiny. Philippine plunder law was never limited to funds lifted directly from the treasury. It covers a public officer amassing ill-gotten wealth through any combination of illegal means tied to their office, bribes and disguised donations included. Invoking flood-control corruption as a reason Marcoleta shouldn’t face charges is whataboutism dressed as principle. The two separate cases don’t cancel each other out.
The rally’s defense leans on deflection rather than a substantive rebuttal on the merits.
The question isn’t whether INC has a right to assemble. If INC’s leadership wants to argue Marcoleta is innocent, the Sandiganbayan is where that case belongs. Not in EDSA.
