Power Dressed as Righteousness: A Note on the recent Rallies,
Selective Accountability, and the False Martyrdom of Bloc Politics
By Morteza Farhadi
There are moments when a political movement must be judged not by the beauty of its words, but by the direction in which those words are pointed. “Transparency,” “accountability,” “justice,” and “peace” are noble words. No republic can live without them. No people can remain free if corruption is allowed to become ordinary, if public money is treated as private inheritance, if contractors and politicians can steal from flood-control funds while the poor wade through water, if prosecutors move only against enemies, and if courts are feared only by those without blocs, lawyers, dynasties, churches, or money. Yet noble words can be turned into a curtain. They can be used not to expose power, but to protect it. They can be made to sound like the voice of the oppressed while serving as the shield of an adherent facing serious charges.
This is the central problem with the Iglesia ni Cristo rally in support of Senator Rodante Marcoleta. Originally meant to follow the earlier marches demanding for accountability and against corruption, at first glance it sounds "just" that these people also trying to express the same sentiment as those in white shirts or ribbons the earlier day, but, to think that the following protest has a particular motive, then it was not wrong for citizens to demand fair process. It was not wrong to ask whether the Ombudsman’s action was selective. It was not wrong to question whether the legal theory behind a possible plunder case over election-related donations is sound. But the political meaning of the rally cannot be separated from its object. It was not simply an abstract demand for clean government. It was a mass religious-political action in defense of a named man, an INC adherent and political ally, who was facing serious allegations. When a movement says “accountability” while organizing around the defense of one of its own, the public has the right to ask whether accountability has become protection.
The INC’s own statement made this tension visible. In its June 30, 2026 statement, delivered by spokesperson Edwil Zabala, the church said it was not opposed to law enforcement but opposed the “distortion or bending of the law,” especially when allegedly done to cover corruption. It said the church supported Marcoleta’s advocacy and called for “transparency, accountability, justice, and peace.” Most revealingly, it said that even if Marcoleta were imprisoned, INC would not stop demanding justice for Filipinos whose money had been stolen; it also declared that “selective justice is an injustice.” The statement therefore bound one man’s legal fate to the suffering of the nation and turned a possible case against a senator into a public drama of wounded justice.
This is where rhetoric begins to darken. A man may expose corruption and still be answerable to the law. A senator may lead an investigation and still face his own charges. A political figure may be useful to a cause and still be subject to evidence. The error of political religion is to imagine that usefulness purifies a man from scrutiny. If Marcoleta is innocent, let the court acquit him. If the plunder theory is weak, let the court reject it. If the prosecution is politically timed, let the defense expose that timing. But a rally should not be used to make the legal process feel illegitimate before the evidence is heard.
The state’s response, as reported, was cautious. Police officials said they recognized the constitutional right to peaceful assembly, while PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. placed units on full alert and ordered personnel to exercise maximum tolerance, remain impartial, uphold human rights, and perform professionally. Daily Tribune reported that 5,936 police and security personnel were deployed to key sites such as the EDSA Shrine, Mendiola, Liwasang Bonifacio, Ayala Bridge, the U.S. Embassy, and the Senate. That was the language of a state trying not to create martyrs. It recognized that a careless dispersal could turn an already charged political event into a persecution narrative. Yet that same caution showed the power of the mobilization. A religious organization had filled strategic public space, and the state was forced to treat it not as a routine rally but as a major political-security event.
That scale matters because mass is a form of speech, but it is also a form of pressure. A crowd along EDSA does not merely express opinion. It occupies space, disrupts movement, absorbs police attention, and sends a message to institutions. Philippine Star reported that thousands of INC members gathered at the People Power Monument in an unannounced rally supporting Marcoleta, that major EDSA routes were closed, and that MMDA Chairman Don Artes said there had been no advisory or coordination from the group. Artes appealed to protesters to respect workers, especially daily wage earners whose pay could be deducted if they arrived late.
Here lies one of the oldest tricks of political power: make the public pay for the drama of the powerful, then call the payment democracy. A daily wage worker delayed on EDSA did not draft the plunder complaint. A nurse on the way to duty did not sit in the Ombudsman’s office. A student trapped in traffic did not decide whether campaign donations can become the basis of a plunder case. Yet the ordinary public was made to absorb the first cost of a senator’s defense. A movement that claims to speak for the people must be judged by how it treats those people who are not part of its mobilization.
“Selective Justice Is Injustice” — A True Sentence Used Crookedly
The phrase “selective justice is injustice” deserves careful treatment because it is true. Selective justice is injustice. If prosecutors move against enemies but spare allies, law becomes factional. If the state uses criminal cases only when a politician becomes inconvenient, law becomes a weapon. No serious observer should pretend Philippine institutions are immune from this danger. The country has long known the pattern of cases filed, delayed, revived, or buried depending on political weather. Therefore, a public demand against selective justice is legitimate in principle.
But a true sentence can be used falsely. If “selective justice is injustice” means that all implicated officials must be investigated and prosecuted, then it is a democratic demand. If it means one’s own adherent should not be touched until every other guilty person is charged first, then it becomes a doctrine of delay and exemption. If it widens accountability, it is justice. If it blocks accountability, it is protection. In that distinction lies the moral problem of the INC rally.
The corrupt order always survives through comparison. Every accused man points to a bigger thief. Every faction says the other faction stole more. Every politician says the case against him is political. Every patron says he is being targeted because he exposed someone else. If this logic is allowed to stop prosecution, no one powerful will ever answer. The proper response to selective justice is not selective immunity. It is wider justice: charge this man if evidence supports it, charge others too, and expose any prosecutorial favoritism. Do not stop one case merely because ten other cases remain.
This is precisely where the INC rally becomes vulnerable. Its public language sounded universal, but its immediate function was particular. It did not arise because a broad national commission had named all contractors and officials. It did not arise simply to demand the return of stolen flood-control funds. It arose because Marcoleta, an INC adherent, was facing a looming serious case. Daily Tribune reported that INC members staged a surprise rally over Marcoleta’s looming arrest and what church leaders described as selective justice around the flood-control scandal investigation. The same report said the Ombudsman had announced that plunder charges were set to be filed against Marcoleta over alleged failure to declare ₱75 million in unused campaign contributions.
The INC statement tried to solve the contradiction by portraying Marcoleta as the one exposing corruption. In that framing, defending him becomes equivalent to defending accountability. If he is jailed, the exposé is silenced. If the case proceeds, the investigation is buried. If the Ombudsman acts, the state is not enforcing law but bending it. This is a clever argument, but it is also dangerous. Any politician can say the same. Every accused official can claim the case against him was designed to stop his exposé. Sometimes that claim may be true, but truth must be proven, not dramatized by crowd power.
The proper demand should have been simple: let the Ombudsman file if there is evidence, let the Sandiganbayan hear the case, let Marcoleta answer, let the defense challenge the theory, let the court decide, and let all other corrupt actors be charged too. If the case is weak, let it fail. If it is abusive, expose it. If it is strong, no crowd should stop it. If the Ombudsman is selective, widen accountability rather than blocking accountability.
The Bayan Critique and the Problem of Sectarian Hostage-Taking
Bayan’s critique of the INC surprise protest strikes directly at this contradiction between universal accountability and sectarian protection. In the statement supplied for this essay and publicly circulated, Bayan argued that INC’s demand to hold all corrupt officials accountable is legitimate, but that the organization refuses to apply the same standard to Marcoleta, who faces graft and plunder allegations over an election-related offense. Bayan said INC’s condemnation of selective justice “smacks of hypocrisy” because, in its view, the immediate motive of the protest is to preempt Marcoleta’s looming arrest. Bayan also accused INC of distorting the clamor for justice by invoking it to negotiate concessions from the Marcos Jr. administration while calling for transparency despite an agenda allegedly shrouded in secrecy and transactional politics.
In this reading, Bayan’s statement matters because it names the masked function of the rally. It does not deny that accountability is needed. It does not deny that corruption must be punished. Rather, it says the INC protest risks hijacking the anti-corruption demand by narrowing it around one adherent. Bayan’s position is not that Marcoleta must be denied due process. Its sharper point is that due process should not be transformed into sectarian immunity. If INC demands accountability for all corrupt officials, then the demand must pass through Marcoleta’s door as well. If the church demands transparency from the state, then its own political bargaining cannot remain hidden behind bloc discipline. If it condemns selective justice, then it must not practice selective outrage.
Bayan also linked the INC leadership to a longer history of siding with powerful dynasties, including the Marcoses and the Marcos-Duterte UniTeam. This is not a marginal point. In 2022, the Philippine News Agency reported that INC officially endorsed Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte, describing INC as an influential organization with about 2.5 million members worldwide. That endorsement does not permanently forbid INC from criticizing corruption. No political organization should be imprisoned forever by its past. But if a bloc helped legitimate the ruling settlement that later produced crisis, then it cannot speak as if it stood above that settlement from the beginning. Political correction is possible; political amnesia is not.
This history makes the church’s later posture vulnerable to the charge of pretension. It supported the Marcos-Duterte electoral architecture, then later participated in anti-corruption mobilizations as that architecture fractured into hostile blocs. If it now demands accountability most loudly when useful to the defense of one adherent, its moral voice appears less prophetic than transactional. A church cannot bless the chariot and then denounce only the wheel that runs over its own foot. It cannot help legitimate a coalition, watch that coalition produce scandal, and then declare itself the pure tribune of justice without accounting for its own role in the political order.
Bayan’s final call is therefore the more republican one: the struggle for genuine accountability and justice should not be held hostage to parochial or sectarian interests. This is not only an anti-INC line; it is a democratic principle. A republic cannot allow any organized bloc, whether religious, dynastic, military, corporate, or partisan, to turn justice into bargaining power. The people must not be forced to choose between Marcos corruption and Duterte corruption, between one dynasty and another, between one religious patron and another political machine. The public demand must be wider: hold both blocs accountable, charge all plunderers, open the books, return the money, and let no adherent be sacred before the law.
An example of a Continuing Past: Bureaucrat Capitalism,
the recent Flood-Control Corruption and the Unsalvagable State Machinery
The INC rally cannot be understood apart from the larger flood-control corruption scandal, because that scandal gave the rally its moral vocabulary. The country had already been convulsed by accusations that public funds for flood-control projects were diverted, wasted, stolen, or buried under layers of contractor privilege. Reuters reported that an alliance of business and civic organizations demanded an independent investigation into what it described as “excessive corruption” in government infrastructure projects. The call followed President Marcos Jr.’s disclosure of audit findings showing that, out of ₱545 billion in flood-control spending since 2022, thousands of projects were allegedly substandard, poorly documented, or nonexistent, while only 15 of more than 2,000 accredited contractors cornered 20 percent of the budget.
Reuters later reported that more than 200,000 protesters turned out for the second day of an anti-graft rally in November 2025, part of a broader wave of demonstrations since August demanding accountability for suspected corruption in flood-control projects. The same report said the scandal had implicated officials and lawmakers, damaged public confidence, and led authorities to freeze more than ₱6 billion in assets linked to those implicated. This was no ordinary procurement issue. It was a national wound, made more bitter by floods that repeatedly punish the poor while public funds vanish into ghost projects, identical-cost contracts, substandard works, and networks of favored contractors.
This is one of the attributes of the country's “continuing past.” Philippine corruption is not merely a list of separate scandals. It is an enduring arrangement among dynasties, contractors, legislators, bureaucrats, police networks, religious blocs, media patrons, campaign financiers, and fixers. It is the old order learning new words. It calls patronage “public service,” dynastic succession “continuity,” pork “development,” political revenge “accountability,” and impunity “due process.” It can even call bloc pressure “democracy” when convenient.
A truly radical demand for accountability would attack that whole machinery. It would demand campaign finance transparency, contractor disclosure, beneficial ownership records, lifestyle checks, procurement audits, and accountability across factional lines. It would scrutinize not only Marcos allies or Duterte allies but the entire system through which both houses, both coalitions, and both patronage networks profited. It would also ask how religious blocs influence elections, what politicians receive from bloc support, and what religious organizations expect in return for political endorsements.
By that measure, the INC rally was not radical enough. It was radical in scale but not in principle. It was radical in discipline but not in self-critique. It was radical in pressure but not in accountability. It did not break the continuing past. It acted within it. It used the language of accountability while defending someone who had become part of the political machinery around which factional conflict was being fought.
The flood-control scandal demanded a movement larger than Marcos, larger than Duterte, larger than one senator, larger than one religious bloc. It demanded a reckoning with a state in which public works can become private wealth and where anti-corruption itself can be weaponized by rival factions. Time reported that September 21, 2025 protests invoked EDSA’s symbolism and martial law’s anniversary, while protesters demanded prison for those guilty of stealing flood-control funds. The same report quoted President Marcos Jr.’s own SONA admission that such projects invite rackets, kickbacks, and “for the boys” arrangements.
The irony is severe. Marcos spoke of corruption, anti-Marcos protesters spoke of corruption, Duterte-aligned figures spoke of corruption, INC spoke of corruption, and civil society spoke of corruption. Everyone learned the language. The question is who allowed that language to pass through their own door.
The White Ribbon, Black Shirts, and Black Friday Contrast
The contrast with the White Ribbon March is important because it shows what an accountability call sounds like when it is broader than the protection of one adherent. Philippine Star reported that the White Ribbon March was organized by Catholic, Muslim, evangelical, and Protestant leaders, with Bishop Efraim Tendero saying the rally aimed to unite Filipinos against corruption. Tendero said the Ombudsman should investigate with “no discrimination,” and that the impeachment trial and Senate Blue Ribbon investigation should continue fairly. Bayan’s Raymond Palatino said the march reflected public clamor to hold corrupt officials and their cohorts accountable, including those involved in the flood-control scandal.
That posture is not beyond criticism, but its moral direction is broader. It points toward institutions and wider corruption structures, rather than making one accused ally the center of public righteousness. It says the Ombudsman must act without discrimination. It says proceedings must continue fairly. It says the Senate and Congress must not bury inquiries. That is different from saying one senator must be protected because his prosecution would stop an exposé.
The black-shirt actions sharpen the contrast further. In Davao, elderly women wore black shirts carrying messages such as “Stop flooding us with corruption” and “Marcos-Duterte panagutin.” When asked why the shirt named both Marcos and Duterte, one participant answered that they were “the same,” while another explained that corruption had happened under both administrations and ordinary people suffered the consequences. This small action carried a moral clarity that a massive rally can lack. It did not make one politician sacred. It did not ask for exemption. It named the system.
Black Friday protests likewise carried an anti-systemic register. GMA News reported that progressive groups and students held protest actions dubbed the “Black Friday Protest” as they continued calling for action against corruption in government. These actions may be militant and imperfect, but their moral object is not the protection of one adherent. Their demand is that the corrupt answer as a class, across factions, rather than that one favored figure be treated as indispensable to truth.
The September 2025 mass protests also demonstrate the breadth of public anger that preceded INC’s later posturing. Time reported that Filipinos massed on EDSA and elsewhere against alleged flood-control corruption, with September 21 carrying symbolic weight because it marked the anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s martial law declaration. This matters because the flood-control scandal did not belong to one faction’s propaganda. It touched the memory of dictatorship, the anger over dynasties, the resentment toward contractor wealth, and the lived experience of floods in poor communities.
This is why the White Ribbon, black-shirt, and Black Friday protests provide a better measure of public conscience. Their strongest slogans pointed outward and structurally: investigate without discrimination, Marcos-Duterte panagutin, hold all corrupt accountable, return stolen money, jail the guilty. These slogans did not revolve around saving one man. They did not require treating a defendant as a sacred vessel. They did not turn prosecution into persecution before trial.
The INC rally used similar words but bent them toward a narrower object. It said transparency, accountability, justice, and peace, but the immediate occasion was Marcoleta’s legal vulnerability. It said selective justice is injustice, but its most urgent political energy was the defense of its own. That is the difference between public conscience and bloc protection.
The November Rally and the Shift from Universal to Particular
The June 2026 rally also must be read against INC’s earlier anti-corruption mobilizations. In November 2025, INC presented itself as part of the demand for transparency and better democracy amid the flood-control scandal. Publicly, the rhetoric was broad: accountability, transparency, justice, peace. Reports and public descriptions framed the event as an anti-corruption mobilization, and Marcoleta himself appeared as a figure connected to that anti-corruption posture.
The shift in June 2026 is therefore revealing. When the language of accountability was pointed outward, INC could present itself as a moral actor demanding that corrupt officials answer. But when Marcoleta himself faced a case, the same vocabulary was redeployed defensively. The universal became particular. The call for justice became a shield. The movement against corruption became a protest against the prosecution of an adherent.
This does not mean ordinary INC members were insincere in either event. Many may genuinely hate corruption. Many may believe Marcoleta is being targeted. Many may sincerely want stolen public funds returned. But sincerity does not settle political function. A crowd can be sincere and still be used. A slogan can be true and still be deployed selectively. A protest can be peaceful and still exert coercive pressure. The question is not merely whether participants believed the words. The question is what the words did in that moment.
In this case, the words protected power. They did not simply expose corruption; they recoded a legal proceeding as persecution. They did not merely defend due process; they suggested that the process itself was part of a cover-up. They did not merely say the accused deserves fairness; they made him appear necessary to the nation’s fight against theft.
This is the anatomy of pretension. Pretension is not always pure lying. Often it is the use of true words in a crooked direction. There is corruption. True. There is selective justice. Often true. The Ombudsman must be scrutinized. True. Marcoleta deserves due process. True. The people deserve stolen funds returned. True. But from these truths, the rally moved toward a more doubtful implication: that proceeding against Marcoleta was already a distortion of justice and perhaps even persecution. That leap is where the political mask appears.
Of Persecution, Endurance, and the Birth of False Martyrdom
The language of persecution and endurance is especially dangerous because it belongs to sacred memory. Every religious community has stories of suffering. Christianity has martyrs. Islam has exile, struggle, and sacrifice. Judaism has exile and survival. Secular movements have prisoners, martyrs, and fallen comrades. Such memories can create courage and moral seriousness. But they can also intoxicate a community. Once a group believes it is persecuted, criticism becomes attack, investigation becomes oppression, prosecution becomes conspiracy, and legal procedure becomes a weapon. The member is no longer simply a citizen. He becomes part of a wounded body under trial.
This is the passage from civic accountability to sacred protection. The ordinary democratic demand would be: charge all corrupt officials, including Marcoleta if evidence warrants, and acquit him if the evidence fails. The rally’s moral pressure instead moved toward the claim that Marcoleta must be protected because he is the investigator, the exposer, the man whose prosecution would kill the truth. This is not yet a formal doctrine of martyrdom, but it prepares the emotional ground for martyrdom. If he is charged, he is persecuted. If he is detained, he is silenced. If the court proceeds, the system is bent. If critics object to the rally, they misunderstand the suffering of the righteous.
Philippine Star reported that Zabala confirmed the rallies supported Marcoleta and said, in Filipino, that jailing him would prevent him from continuing to expose alleged plunder. Daily Tribune reported that Marcoleta said his arrest would derail the flood-control investigation and bury it in oblivion. These statements show the transformation: Marcoleta is no longer only a defendant; he is framed as the bearer of the exposé. His possible detention becomes not merely a legal event but a national danger. That is how false martyrdom is prepared.
A true martyr suffers for truth without using truth as a shield against scrutiny. A false martyr is manufactured when a powerful network transforms legal accountability into persecution. The distinction is essential. A person may be unfairly prosecuted; history is full of such cases. But unfairness must be shown by evidence, not assumed because the accused belongs to a disciplined religious bloc. If the mere fact of prosecution becomes proof of persecution, then accountability becomes impossible.
This is why the INC rally’s emotional architecture matters. Its words of accountability belonged to civic discourse, but its deeper emotional force came from persecution and endurance. It was not simply saying, “Let the case be fair.” It was saying, “Our man is being attacked because he exposes corruption.” It was not merely asking for transparency. It was framing the law’s movement toward a favored adherent as an attack on truth.
Why the Movement Appears Qutbian in Character?
Sayyid Qutb is useful here not as an example, but also as a warning. He was one of the leading Islamist ideological thinkers of the twentieth century, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy summarizes his mature Islamist position as one in which all aspects of society should be conducted according to Shari‘a, the law of God as derived from the Qur’an and the Prophet’s practice. In his book "Milestones", Qutb’s radical structure is the division between a corrupt jahili order and a righteous movement that refuses to accept that order’s legitimacy. One version of the text describes the movement as using preaching and persuasion to reform ideas, and “physical power and Jihad” to abolish the authorities of the jahili system.
The INC rally, however, was not Qutbism. It was not Islamic to begin with nor did not call for armed struggle. It did not call the Philippine republic jahili. It did not demand the abolition of the Constitution. To say that would be false. But it looked unconsciously Qutbian in character because it reproduced, in softened Philippine form, the structure of sacred struggle: a corrupted order, a righteous community, a threatened representative, a language of endurance, and suspicion toward institutions when they move against the movement’s figure.
The Qutbian echo is structural, not doctrinal. In Qutb’s world, the jahili order is morally illegitimate because it rejects divine sovereignty. In the INC protest’s political mood, the legal order becomes morally suspect because it touches the one presented as exposing corruption. In Qutb, the vanguard confronts a system that blocks divine truth. In the INC rally’s emotional logic, the bloc confronts a state that supposedly bends law to silence an exposer. The theology is different. The danger lies in the same habit of mind: the movement’s moral certainty begins to outrank public process.
This is why “Qutbian” must be used carefully but not abandoned. It does not mean Islamic-like. It does not mean violent. It does not mean the INC has adopted Islamic doctrine. It means a political character marked by sacred grievance, collective discipline, moral absolutism, persecution language, and distrust of ordinary institutions when those institutions threaten the movement’s chosen figure. A movement does not need to quote Qutb to resemble his structure. It only needs to transform politics into sacred struggle, law into enemy action, and group loyalty into moral truth.
The public language of the rally was democratic, but the deeper mood was siege. It spoke of accountability, but it moved as if the accused was already morally vindicated. It spoke of justice, but it pre-judged legal action as distortion. It spoke of transparency, but it left its own pressure machinery opaque. It spoke of peace, but peace was accompanied by a mass pressure action that forced the public to adjust around it.
Why the Spokesmen Tries to Sound Khomeinian in Tone
The comparison to Imam Ruhollah Khomeini operates differently. In "Islamic Government", Khomeini wrote that Islamic government is a “government of law,” but that in such a government “sovereignty belongs to God alone and law is His decree and command.” He argued that the divine command has absolute authority over individuals and government. The point is not that INC teaches Khomeini’s doctrine of guardianship of the jurist. It does not. The point is that religious-political movements can speak in the language of law while relocating legitimacy toward sacred certainty.
When an INC spokesman says the movement is not against law enforcement but against the bending of law, the sentence can be civic and reasonable. But when that sentence is spoken by a disciplined religious bloc defending one of its own, it begins to sound unconsciously Khomeinian in tone: law is respected, but the movement reserves for itself the higher moral authority to declare when law has become injustice. The issue is not the formal doctrine but the posture. Public law becomes acceptable only when it aligns with the movement’s moral reading.
This is not formal theocracy. It is not theocracy by constitution. It is not clerics occupying state office. It is something softer and therefore easier to excuse: theocracy by pressure, or sacred politics by mobilization. It occurs when a religious organization does not need to rule the state directly because it can pressure the state from outside, discipline its members, signal to politicians, and transform legal accountability into persecution whenever the law reaches one of its own. Such pressure does not abolish the courtroom, but it tries to surround it with moral force.
A Revolutionary paper in Tehran during the time of the Revolution would understand the power of crowds. It would know that people can break fear. It would know that corrupt orders often present themselves as legal and modern while stealing from the people. But an honest revolutionary paper would also know that sacred movements can become new machines of obedience. A movement that denounces tyranny can build a new authority around its own certainty. A party that speaks of justice can become the gatekeeper of truth. A religious leadership that speaks of law can sanctify political pressure.
This is the ironic lesson of revolution: the language of justice is never enough. It must be tested against power. The question is not whether a movement says “law.” The question is whether it submits its own people to law. The question is not whether it says “accountability.” The question is whether accountability reaches its own adherents. The question is not whether it says “peace.” The question is whether its method respects those outside its ranks.
Of "Bloc Democracy" and the Problem of Organized Obedience
Bloc democracy is a contradiction if it reduces citizens to disciplined instruments. Democracy requires citizens who deliberate, dissent, judge, and change their minds. Bloc politics prefers bodies that move together, vote together, and defend together. Democracy requires open persuasion. Bloc politics often operates through internal authority. Democracy requires accountability for all. Bloc politics protects the bargaining power of the group.
This does not mean every INC member lacks agency. That would be unfair. Members are citizens with conscience, and many may sincerely believe the protest was justified. But the structure matters. When a religious institution mobilizes as an institution, the act is not merely individual citizenship. It becomes collective discipline. The public has the right to ask who decided the action, who coordinated transportation, who set the message, who chose the location, who bore the cost, who negotiated with officials, who benefited politically, and what the boundaries are between worship, political lobbying, and coercive mobilization.
Transparency must begin at home. If a group demands that the state show its books, it must also be willing to explain how it wields its power. If it demands accountability from officials, it must accept accountability for its public actions. If it demands democracy, it must show that its members act as citizens rather than merely as a bloc under command. Otherwise democracy becomes a mask for organized obedience.
The Philippine sociopolitical system has long understood the usefulness of religious blocs. Politicians court them not only for votes but for legitimacy. A church endorsement can make a candidate appear moral. A religious crowd can make a political cause appear righteous. A pulpit can give a faction the aura of conscience. People even saw the idea of bloc politics as a form of promoting discipline the way that group presents itself as orderly. That is why religious power in politics must be scrutinized as carefully as that of military power, business power, dynastic power, or media power.
The issue, therefore, is not religion in politics. Religion can enrich public life. It can feed the poor, shelter dissenters, oppose dictatorship, defend communities, and discipline greed. The issue is impunitarian religion: religious language used to shield power from accountability if not a form of misunderstood power wrapped in the verse of faith. Religion that demands justice for all is public conscience. Religion that shields its own is patronage. Religion that humbles rulers is prophetic. Religion that sanctifies bloc power is dangerous.
Democracy Is More Than Assembly
Democracy is not only the right to assemble. It is also equal process. It is not only the right to speak. It is also the discipline to let institutions hear evidence. It is not only filling EDSA. It is also respecting those who did not join one’s cause. A rally can be democratic in form and coercive in effect. It can invoke constitutional rights while pressuring constitutional institutions. It can speak of justice while making daily life unjust for those trapped outside its cause.
This does not mean all disruptive protest is wrong. Anti-dictatorship movements disrupt. Labor strikes disrupt. Anti-corruption mobilizations disrupt. Student walkouts disrupt. But disruption must be morally proportionate and politically honest. A protest against dictatorship may need to seize the street because ordinary institutions have collapsed. A protest against stolen public funds may disrupt routine because the public has been robbed. A labor strike may disrupt business because workers have no other leverage. But when a protest is triggered by the possible prosecution of a powerful political ally who still has legal remedies, the moral justification becomes less obvious.
The INC rally’s disruption was therefore not morally neutral. It was not simply inconvenience in the service of broad public accountability. It was inconvenience in the service of a pressure campaign around Marcoleta. Philippine Star reported that MMDA officials closed major routes and noted no prior coordination, while Artes appealed to protesters to respect the rights of workers trying to reach their jobs. That appeal should not be treated as mere administrative complaint. It is a democratic claim. Nonparticipants have rights too.
A republic must protect peaceful assembly, but it must not confuse crowd size with moral legitimacy. People Power is not merely bodies on EDSA. It is bodies on EDSA animated by a public cause larger than factional protection. When bodies are mobilized to shield a political adherent from legal exposure, the moral status of the crowd becomes ambiguous. The crowd may be sincere, but sincerity does not answer the question of function.
The Marcos-Duterte System and the Church’s Place Within It
The most devastating critique of INC’s posture is that it speaks against a system it helped legitimate. INC’s 2022 endorsement of Marcos and Duterte was a public act of political force, not a private theological opinion. PNA reported that INC officially endorsed Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte during the 2022 campaign. Inquirer likewise reported the endorsement of the Marcos-Duterte tandem.
This matters because the current crisis cannot be separated from the Marcos-Duterte settlement. The flood-control scandal, confidential funds controversies, impeachment fights, Senate realignments, Ombudsman cases, and mass protests are not disconnected episodes. They are symptoms of a political system in which factions share power until the sharing collapses, then accuse one another of theft. Those who helped legitimate the coalition must reckon with what the coalition produced.
This does not mean INC members cannot change their minds. They can. It does not mean the church can never criticize those it once supported. It can. Political repentance is possible. Institutional correction is possible. But correction requires honesty. A group that helped power must admit its role in power. A bloc that endorsed the winners must reckon with what those winners did.
Without that reckoning, the demand for accountability sounds performative. It says: hold them accountable, but forget how we helped them rise. It says: condemn corruption, but do not examine our political endorsements. It says: expose the system, but not the religious bloc’s role inside the system.
That is why the anti-corruption language becomes pretentious. It pretends to stand above faction when it has participated in faction. It pretends to speak for the nation when it is defending an adherent. It pretends to demand a radical break while protecting one of the instruments through which bloc politics survives.
The Radicalism That Was Needed, and the Radicalism That Appeared
The Philippines needs radical accountability. It needs accountability radical enough to pass through every political house, every contractor network, every dynasty, every budget office, every Senate committee, every local government, every donor network, every campaign ledger, and every religious endorsement. It needs accountability that asks who stole, who looked away, who benefited, who funded whom, who inserted what, who approved which project, who covered up, who coordinated, and who now pretends innocence.
But the radicalism displayed by the INC rally was not radical accountability. It was radical mobilization. It was radical pressure. It was radical discipline. It was not radical self-critique. It did not attack the system deeply enough because to do so would require asking uncomfortable questions about INC’s own political role. It would require asking why the church supported dynastic candidates. It would require asking why its anti-corruption line became most emotionally intense when one of its adherents faced legal peril. It would require asking why its rhetoric was louder against selective justice in Marcoleta’s case than against the wider corruption issues hounding multiple blocs.
A radical accountability movement would not make Marcoleta indispensable. It would not say or imply that imprisoning him would stop the truth. It would not convert one senator into the hinge of national justice. True radicalism does not protect the hero from scrutiny. It destroys the need for heroes by building institutions strong enough to continue without them.
If the investigation dies because one senator is detained, then the investigation was already too weak. If truth depends on one politician, then truth has already been captured by faction. If accountability depends on a church-backed adherent, then accountability has already been subordinated to bloc power.
The radical demand should be this: charge every guilty official, including those close to Marcos; charge every guilty official, including those close to Duterte; charge every guilty official, including those endorsed or defended by religious blocs; freeze stolen assets; blacklist corrupt contractors; expose campaign finance; prosecute plunder; return the money; and protect whistleblowers without making them immune from scrutiny.
The Danger of Sacred Impunity
Sacred impunity is more dangerous than ordinary impunity. Ordinary impunity says: I am powerful, so I cannot be touched. Sacred impunity says: I am righteous, so touching me is persecution. Ordinary impunity bribes. Sacred impunity mobilizes. Ordinary impunity hides. Sacred impunity preaches. Ordinary impunity fears exposure. Sacred impunity converts exposure into martyrdom.
The INC rally risked sacralizing impunity. It did not explicitly say Marcoleta was above the law. But it framed legal action against him as part of a larger distortion of justice. It did not openly demand that the court stop. But it moved bodies into the street before the court could decide. It did not openly say he must be exempt. But it made his prosecution feel like an attack on the struggle.
This is precisely how sacred impunity functions. It rarely announces itself as exemption. It announces itself as justice. It rarely says “protect power.” It says “defend truth.” It rarely says “obey the bloc.” It says “stand with the persecuted.” It rarely says “pressure the state.” It says “exercise democratic rights.” Each statement may contain truth, but the total function may still be coercive.
The republic must therefore be vigilant. When the powerful say justice, ask: for whom? When the bloc says accountability, ask: including yours? When the spokesman says peace, ask: why the pressure? When the movement says persecution, ask: or prosecution? When the crowd says democracy, ask: where is the court?
The Court, Not the "Crowd" (for now)
One would say that the court is imperfect. That the Ombudsman can be selective. That the Judges can be pressured. And Prosecutors can be timid. Legal proceedings can be slow and expensive. And no revolutionary should romanticize the Philippine legal system. But what is the alternative? A court of crowds? A tribunal of churches? A republic of blockades? A legal order where every organized group surrounds its accused and declares prosecution persecution?
If that becomes the rule, no one powerful will ever answer. A dynasty will fill the capitol. A church will fill EDSA. A business bloc will threaten capital. A police faction will leak files. A military clique will whisper intervention. A media network will manufacture outrage. Each will say justice. Each will protect its own. That is not democracy. That is factional siege.
For now the Sandiganbayan exists for a reason. The Ombudsman exists for a reason. Rules of evidence exist for a reason. Defense pleadings exist for a reason. Appeals exist for a reason. These institutions are imperfect, but they remain the alternative to mob adjudication. If they are corrupt, reform them. If they are selective, expose the selectivity. If they are slow, demand speed. But do not replace them with the moral pressure of a religious bloc.
The proper demand is not “do not touch Marcoleta.” The proper demand is: file the case properly, disclose the basis, respect due process, proceed against everyone implicated, and let the court decide. If the case is weak, let it fail. If it is strong, let it proceed. If the Ombudsman is selective, expose him. If the prosecution is abusive, defeat it in court- for no crowd should be large enough to make a senator untouchable.
What Their Members Themselves Must Ask?
The hardest audience for this critique is not INC leadership but also its ordinary members. They are citizens. They are workers, students, parents, professionals, vendors, drivers, teachers, and believers. Many may have joined the rally sincerely. Many may believe they were defending fairness. Many may hate corruption. Many may see Marcoleta as a man who exposed thieves. Therefore, the criticism must not treat them as mindless. It must speak to them as citizens.
The question they must ask is not whether Marcoleta deserves due process. He does. The question is whether due process means protection from prosecution. The question is not whether the Ombudsman may be selective. It may be. The question is whether selectivity should stop a case against an adherent or widen cases against everyone. The question is not whether the church may speak. It may. The question is whether the church should make legal accountability feel like persecution whenever it reaches one of its own.
Bayan’s appeal to INC members, as supplied in the text to be inserted, is therefore crucial: reject both sides and condemn public officials who steal with impunity, even those who share one’s religious beliefs. That line is not merely partisan. It is republican. A citizen must be able to say: even if he is ours, let him answer. Even if we like him, let evidence decide. Even if he exposed others, let him be scrutinized too. Even if the case is political, let the defense prove it under law.
That is the moral test of citizenship against bloc obedience. A church member can remain faithful while refusing to sanctify a politician. A believer can defend due process without turning an accused ally into a martyr. A citizen can oppose selective justice without practicing selective outrage.
Ending the Pretension
The strongest version of the INC argument would sound like this: the Ombudsman may be selective; the case may be politically timed; Marcoleta has the right to defend himself; campaign-donation law must be properly interpreted; all corrupt actors in flood-control scandals must be charged; and no politician, including Marcoleta, should be above evidence and trial. That argument is legitimate. It belongs in public debate.
The weaker and more dangerous version sounds like this: Marcoleta is ours; he is exposing corruption; therefore charging him is persecution; therefore we will mobilize until authorities feel our force. That argument is not accountability. It is protection.
The White Ribbon March, the black-shirt actions, and the Black Friday protests offer a sharper standard. They may differ in ideology and method, but at their strongest they named the system: investigate without discrimination, "Marcos-Duterte panagutin", stop flooding us with corruption, hold all corrupt accountable. Those words aimed at that one attribute of a continuing, corrupted past. They did not revolve around one adherent’s defense.
The INC rally borrowed similar language but bent it toward a narrower purpose. That is why it sounded pretentious. It used the vocabulary of those who marched against the system while defending someone who operated inside the system. It sounded Qutb-like in its persecution narrative and Khomeinian in its moral-legal certainty, yet it did not admit the sacred pressure beneath its civic language.
The republic must draw the line clearly. Faith may speak. Citizens may gather. Churches may criticize government. Religious members may defend their own. But no religious organization should be allowed to turn public roads into leverage, legal cases into persecution narratives, and defendants into sacred symbols.
The real demand should be simple: let the Ombudsman file, let the Sandiganbayan hear, let the defense answer, let evidence decide- and if he is guilty, convict him. If others are guilty, charge them too. If the Ombudsman is selective, expose him. If the prosecution is abusive, defeat it in court.
Anything less is not accountability. It is their fanaticism in the street trying to overrule the courtroom if not ruining the demand of those who truly express. It is sacred grievance pretending to be democracy. It is the old politics wearing the mask of justice.
***
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