Exactly how many votes does Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) command?

Editorial

The Iglesia Ni Cristo boasts that it commands a block vote of five million. That is why gullible and desperate politicians make a beeline for the Iglesia central temple in Quezon City to seek the blessings of Eduardo Manalo every election year, lawyer Wilfredo Garrido says.   

He goes on: “There is no way to validate this figure. But there is empirical evidence to show that it commands much less than that: not even a million votes. Consider the performance of its well-known party-list organization: SAGIP, headed by ABS-CBN franchise buster Rodante Marcoleta.

“Voters are allowed to vote only one party-list. For a sect deathly afraid of splitting its vote, on which it depends for its very existence, to the extent of expelling any member who defies its leader's choice, INC can afford to endorse only one party-list. This is none other than SAGIP, which it did in fact endorse in 2013. Vote for more than one party-list and your vote is considered spoiled.

“Based on the last election, two million votes are enough to get you the maximum three seats. If it really has five million votes locked up, the INC should be consistently topping the party-list race and sending the maximum of three representatives to Congress, right?

“SAGIP has never been able to do this in the four consecutive elections it contested since 2013. In the last election in 2022, only one party-list was able win three seats: ACT-CIS, with 2,111,091 votes. SAGIP?

It got 780,456 votes, good enough for two seats, its best performance so far. In the first three elections it contested, it managed to send one representative to Congress by the skin of its teeth: barely 300,000 votes. So what happened to the four million other votes?

You can't say they defied their prophet. It is more likely they don't exist. So, good luck chasing Iglesia votes.”

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile warned the country would face a “very detrimental precedent” if Filipinos followed the implied reasoning of the recent INC rally opposing efforts to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday night, two days after the INC’s “National Rally for Peace,” the 100-year-old former Senate President challenged the INC’s supposed support of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call on his congressional allies not to pursue the Vice President’s impeachment, which is an exercise of due process to exact accountability.

“There is a bigger question,” Enrile said. “Can the INC, with all its members, amend the 1987 Constitution or suspend any of its provisions? Are we prepared to discard or sacrifice the value of rule of law for a person or a group of persons?”

Enrile explained impeachment is “just a constitutional legal process” to remove an official from office if found culpable based on evidence. It is not meant to send the official to prison.

Under the 1987 Constitution, the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court and constitutional commissions, and the Ombudsman are impeachable public officers.

As the Senate President in 2012, Enrile presided over the impeachment trial of then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona for betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution for not disclosing all his assets as constitutionally required.

On Feb. 28 that year, the INC also held rallies nationwide, drawing a crowd of more than half a million at Quirino Grandstand. The assembly was billed as a “Grand Evangelical Mission,” similar to the peace rally last Monday, but was a subtle signal to Malacañang not to convict Corona.

On May 29, 2012, Enrile and 19 other senators voted to convict Corona, whose lead lawyer was retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Serafin Cuevas, an INC member. Mr. Marcos, then a senator, voted against Corona’s impeachment along with Senators Joker Arroyo and Miriam Defensor Santiago.

In his Facebook post, Enrile warned against following the implied reasoning behind the INC rally, which is not to let due process take its course in the three impeachment complaints against Duterte in the House of Representatives for the sake of “peace and unity.”

“As a nation and a state, we will incur a very detrimental precedent if we follow the logic implicit in the INC rally that they mounted. Are we prepared and ready to face the long-term consequences of that INC move?” he asked.

In November last year, the President said that Congress should not pursue the impeachment of Duterte. He pointed out that the Vice President was “unimportant” and her impeachment would just be a waste of time that would distract lawmakers from doing their jobs and wouldn’t benefit a single Filipino.

Malacañang was unmoved by Enrile’s Facebook post.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Thursday said the President has “always nurtured a culture of open ventilation of ideas” among members of the Cabinet and that it was this environment that Enrile decided to speak on the issue.

“While his thoughts may carry weight and are always valued, his is one of many that the President seriously considers. Nonetheless, the President’s stand on the issue concerned remains unchanged,” Bersamin said.

The executive secretary said Mr. Marcos’ openness to opposing points of view from Cabinet members had enriched policymaking because of the “diverse views resulting in decisions distilled from a wealth of varied experiences, different disciplines and special expertise of those who contribute.”

The INC, known for bloc voting during elections, said the rally was not meant to be a political gathering. But sect leaders urged lawmakers to address major problems like the high food prices, lack of jobs, and poverty and not to engage in politicking such as moves to impeach the Vice President.

Duterte broke off from the Cabinet last July when she quit as education secretary. Months later, she became openly hostile to the President and called him a liar and a thief in a profanity-laced tirade during an online press briefing.

She also said that she had arranged for the assassination of the President, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez if she died in an alleged plot to kill her.

Although the influential INC mustered large crowds across the country to attend the Jan. 13 peace rally, including an estimated 1.8 million at Quirino Grandstand, critics of the Vice President were undeterred in pushing for her impeachment.

The impeachment complaints accused her of culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, bribery, and other high crimes.

All the complaints alleged that Duterte misused hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

Members of various people’s organizations, social movements, sectoral groups, and religious leaders gathered for a Mass at Edsa Shrine in Quezon City that served as a platform for reflection, prayer, and a collective call for holding public officials, particularly the Vice President, accountable.

They wore white and black shirts with peach-colored ribbons, symbolizing their commitment to impeach Duterte to uphold transparency and justice in governance.

They were joined by Akbayan Rep. Perci Cendaña, an endorser of the first impeachment complaint against Duterte; former Sen. Leila de Lima, spokesperson for the complainants of the first complaint; leaders from the Magdalo Party-List group; former presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles; and Francis “Kiko” Aquino Dee, grandson of the late President Corazon Aquino.

The “Misa ng Sambayanan: May Kapayapaan kung May Pananagutan” (People’s Mass: There is Peace when there is Accountability) was a virtual retort to the INC’s “National Rally for Peace.”

“There is no peace without justice and no justice without accountability,” said Cendaña, adding that every delay in the impeachment process would embolden the Vice President and weaken democratic institutions.

Dee, one of the impeachment complainants, said “peace and accountability are related.”

De Lima said the impeachment of the Vice President was a moral and constitutional imperative.

“Impunity thrives in silence and inaction,” she said. “Without transparency, there can be no trust. The Vice President’s blatant disregard for accountability demands swift and decisive action. The Filipino people deserve no less.”

        So back to INC’s purported bloc voting and its capability to win elections – does it really hold water?