After the calamities, it is back to the streets.
The influential Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) is not missing a beat. The religious sect is mobilizing for three days of protest next week. The planned protests will likely include other religious groups that have lately moved closer to its center of gravity.
Earlier this year, the INC held a million-person rally to express its objections to the impeachment proceedings initiated against Vice President Sara Duterte. The impeachment proceedings were rather sloppily put together at the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the impeachment effort violated constitutional rules.
When the INC mobilized against the Sara impeachment, it made clear that the sect would have no part in the political games orchestrated by the ruling faction. The leadership of the sect made no secret of its distaste for the agenda of dynastic continuity that animated the sloppy impeachment proceedings.
The shelving of the impeachment in the face of the High Court’s ruling is a win for the INC. In addition to the shelving of the impeachment, the INC also saw its political stocks rise in the midterm elections. Despite heavy partisan spending on various cash assistance programs, the pro-Marcos candidates fared poorly.
Meanwhile, epic looting of infrastructure funds produced the biggest corruption scandal to date. The administration, along with its closest allies in Congress, were set back by the sheer magnitude of the corruption scandal. It does not seem likely that the House of Representatives would bother to initiate further moves against the Vice President. The political climate has changed dramatically.
The Marcos administration is obviously not happy with the INC’s reentry into the arena of protests. The President thinks the corruption scandal should be depoliticized. He prefers the process to be an entirely legal one, confined to quiet investigations, subpoenas and the filing of charges.
The administration was quite content with protest actions undertaken by civil society organizations that have bent over backwards to avoid issuing calls for the President to resign. A great number of the groups involved in these other protest activities would rather see Marcos remain in power than toy with the political possibilities of more militant political demands. These groups are avoiding a scenario where heightened protest activities see the rise to power of Sara Duterte.
The tame political positioning of the conservative civil society groups works well enough to Marcos’ favor. Their political slogans fall far short of the public anger over the wholesale looting that happened.
There is, to be sure, much political anger to go around. The past few weeks, statements over the slow pace of the investigation and the apparent exclusion from rigorous scrutiny of Marcos’ closest allies emanated from business community groups.
Some outspoken groups are increasingly convinced a cover-up is in progress. The scale of the public works scandal ought to have provided impetus for a sweeping reform of government processes to finally come to grips with the corruption problem.
It is clearly not enough to bring some of the looters to court. People expect nothing less than an unremitting overhaul of government processes, beginning from the manner politicians have carved an outsized role for themselves in identifying, funding and extracting kickbacks from public works projects.
As things stand, with a deficient instrument such as the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), the matter could deteriorate into a long drone of legal suits that leaves the corrupt role of the political elite in the budgeting process largely intact.
The INC and like-minded groups will not have the patience for this. They want urgent reforms to be undertaken. They want the omissions of the current administration exposed and ruthlessly criticized.
The INC leader has words of foreboding. Their community, he said, will no longer be silent.
There has been some speculation about the political role the sect assigns itself in the current political turbulence. Some surmise that the sect is flexing its new power to influence the course of events in the life of this nation. To be sure, this community of faith can no longer be content in its traditional role of merely endorsing candidates without laying out an agenda for the nation.
It is likely that the INC has found a more assertive role for itself. Its entry into the field of mass protests will influence the configuration of forces. The administration can no longer presume that the anti-corruption protests will long remain within the domain of the more politically timid groups – those who would prefer to tolerate the sitting presidency because of fear of an outcome beyond anybody’s control.
The tone and tempo of protest actions will change palpably because of the INC’s decision to reenter the arena of mass protest. The sect sees itself as a more assertive alternative to the constellation of politically timid groups.
There is enough indignation to go around in the midst of the corruption crisis. There will be a far more diverse range of voices in the field as a result of this decision to participate more assertively in the protest arena.
Nothing immediately dramatic is expected to happen because of this reentry. Over the longer term, the articulate voice of the INC will provide the diversity so lacking in the conservative protest actions of the past few months.
As the INC flexes its influence, it gains political influence.
