What a difference an election makes. Three years ago, the one thing that occupied our minds was the extent to which Arroyo’s government would cheat. It was the first time votes would be counted electronically, which caused widespread anxiety and fear. The possibilities for cheating had just been jacked up a hundredfold, computerized canvassing threatening to make “Hello Garci” look like child’s play.
Less than a week to the May 13 elections, the ground for an administration’s sweep of the Senate polls has been deeply eroded by shifts of “block support” from organizations controlling huge chunks of votes, such as the Iglesia ni Cristo and El Shaddai, the latter a religious group associated with the Roman Catholic Church.
While many Filipino Church leaders are now on the campaign trail to openly and blatantly discredit candidates whom they consider “antilife” and anti-Catholic because these candidates went against the official Church stand on the Reproductive Health Law and supported it, I don’t see a groundswell that would spell the ultimate doom of these pro-RH candidates in the May 13 polls. Meaning, candidates will rise or fall not on RH issues.
The Iglesia ni Cristo will be a huge factor in these elections, say several people. Its leaders have just issued a circular that demands that the “unity vote” be strictly observed.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Renato Corona has the Iglesia ni Cristo.
Is there really an Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) lobby to have Chief Justice Renato Corona acquitted by the Senate impeachment court? Malacañang doesn’t believe so, but I think it is very likely. The Palace said “it wouldn’t be surprised” if some people affiliated with the INC would lobby for Corona, but it doubted that the lobbying would be instigated or have the approval of INC’s leadership.
Inquirer columnist Randy David spoke of a “gridlock culture” in his Feb. 29 commentary in relation to the Iglesia ni Cristo prayer rally that paralyzed Metro Manila traffic the previous day.
I congratulate columnist Conrado de Quiros for another incisive commentary, “Voice of God.”
The Iglesia ni Cristo’s rally on Tuesday put at least 600,000 people on the streets in one of the biggest show-of-force demonstrations since the 1986 People Power Revolution. It came on the heels of the 26th anniversary of the first Edsa upheaval. The administration of President Aquino used the anniversary to rally public support for [...]
The Iglesia ni Cristo rally at the Luneta last Tuesday had an ignoble precedent a little more than a decade ago. It also had to do with religion, it also had to do with the Luneta, it also had to do with an impeachment. And it was also justified as a prayer rally despite politics dripping all over it like lard from a cooked goose.
Political observers in this season of impeachment and popular mobilizations cannot but see the Iglesia ni Cristo’s massive gathering at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila the other day as a “show of force.” But, if the INC crowd indeed carried a message other than a religious one, what might it be and who was its addressee? The speculation is that the target is the Aquino administraton. And its message supposedly is: “We are strong and we are still around. We helped you in the last election. Do not take us for granted.”
Filipinos mark today the 26th anniversary of toppling a dictator without bloodshed. That flower-in-the-gun-barrel model is refracted in Gandhi’s march to protest the Salt Tax in 1930, Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” of 1988 and Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolt” last year.
