When Questioning Their Intent Is Different from Denying the Right to Dissent
Ro: On the recene White Ribbon March,
the INC Mobilization in support of Rodante Marcoleta, the Marcos-Duterte rift,
and the People’s Struggle Against Selective Accountability
The right to dissent is not the property of one church, one party, one faction, or one camp. It belongs to the people. It belongs to workers delayed on the road, students marching with placards, church people praying in public squares, farmers demanding land and relief, professionals calling for clean government, and ordinary citizens who refuse to be treated as spectators in the quarrels of the powerful. No state that calls itself democratic may deny the right to assemble, speak, pray, protest, criticize, and demand redress.
But the right to dissent is not a command that the people must close their eyes. To defend the right of the Iglesia ni Cristo to gather is not to surrender the right to question the purpose of that gathering. To recognize religious freedom is not to accept religious pressure as political innocence. To uphold peaceful assembly is not to pretend that every assembly serves the people. The issue, therefore, is not whether INC members may rally. They may. The issue is whether a mass mobilization at the People Power Monument, organized in support of Senator Rodante Marcoleta while he faces serious allegations, serves democratic accountability or shields political power from it.
The central question remains simple: why should any public official need tens of thousands of people to defend him against a legal investigation? In a constitutional democracy, accountability is not measured by the size of one’s following, by the discipline of one’s bloc, or by the ability of one’s supporters to occupy a historic site. It is measured by evidence, due process, and the independence of institutions. Marcoleta has faced possible plunder proceedings over alleged undeclared campaign contributions worth around ₱75 million, and Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla has said his office would proceed with the filing of charges despite the rally. “Nothing has changed. We will file,” Remulla said, according to GMA News.
The Iglesia ni Cristo has the right to question the case. It has the right to say the prosecution is selective. It has the right to insist that the law must not be bent. But when a powerful religious organization mobilizes at EDSA in defense of one of its own, while speaking the language of transparency, accountability, justice, and peace, the people must ask what those words are doing. Are they opening the road toward universal accountability, or are they being used to build a protective wall around one adherent?
The rally cannot be separated from the larger crisis of the ruling order. Partido Lakas ng Masa has correctly situated the mobilization within the intensifying clash between the Marcos and Duterte factions. This is no longer a mere dispute within government. It is a crisis of dynasties, trapos, contractors, police institutions, religious blocs, and political machines struggling for power, influence, and control of the state. The immediate issue may be Marcoleta’s looming legal peril, but the background is broader: the collapse of the Marcos-Duterte alliance, the impeachment struggle surrounding Vice President Sara Duterte, the flood-control corruption scandal, and the attempt of rival factions to weaponize accountability against one another.
The people must not be deceived. Marcos and Duterte forces both speak of corruption when it serves their side. Each camp points to the theft of the other. Each presents itself as the cleaner force when attacking the rival faction. But both are products of the same rotten order. Both are tied to dynastic rule, bureaucratic manipulation, patronage, elite bargaining, and the conversion of public office into private machinery. When two stones collide, it is the people caught between them who are crushed.
Bayan’s critique exposes the same contradiction from another angle. The demand to hold all corrupt officials accountable is legitimate, but INC refuses to apply the principle consistently when the subject is Marcoleta. Bayan said INC’s condemnation of selective justice “smacks of hypocrisy,” arguing that the rally’s motive was to preempt Marcoleta’s looming arrest. It also accused INC of distorting the clamor for justice by invoking it to negotiate concessions from the Marcos Jr. administration while its own political agenda remained hidden behind secrecy and transactional politics.
The civic groups behind the Trillion Peso Marches made the same point with precision. Their statement opposed the INC-led gathering in support of Marcoleta while expressly recognizing the freedoms of expression, religion, and peaceful assembly. Their concern was not EDSA as a venue or protest as a right, but the use of collective political and institutional power to place individuals beyond accountability. Tindig Pilipinas likewise criticized the rally held in support of Marcoleta, who faces an impending plunder case, warning against the use of democratic symbols to protect public officials from legal scrutiny.
This is the line that must be held: peaceful assembly is a right, but organized pressure upon institutions is a political act subject to judgment. EDSA is not merely asphalt. The People Power Monument is not a neutral backdrop for any faction seeking leverage. It is a national symbol of resistance to dictatorship, impunity, abuse of power, and the rule of fear. It must not be converted into a shield for any person facing credible allegations. Its memory belongs to the Filipino people, not to a dynasty, church, party, faction, or senator.
Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo’s warning carries moral weight because it defends assembly while insisting on public responsibility. He affirmed that citizens have the right to express views, seek redress, and hold institutions accountable, but he also reminded organizers that freedom must be balanced with concern for fellow Filipinos. The bishops’ commission warned that calls for transparency and accountability should not come at the expense of ordinary people, especially when gridlock burdens daily wage earners, students, and emergency services.
This is not a plea for silence. It is a democratic ethic. The people on the road are also the people. The worker whose wage is cut because of delay is also the people. The student trapped in traffic is also the people. The patient waiting for emergency passage is also the people. A movement cannot claim to uplift the nation while treating nonparticipants as disposable burdens. Protest may disrupt, but disruption must be justified by a public purpose larger than the defense of a powerful political ally.
The facts of disruption cannot be dismissed as a minor inconvenience. Reports said the INC rally began as a sudden action that clogged EDSA, brought heavy traffic, and later prompted adjustments by authorities and local government. Inquirer reported that the crowd was placed by police at 14,100, including 13,500 gathered along White Plains, while Philstar reported the rally entered its second day amid Marcoleta’s looming plunder case. These are not merely administrative details. They show that a religious-political mobilization imposed costs on the wider public.
The defenders of the rally will answer that selective justice is injustice. This is true. But a true sentence can be used crookedly. If “selective justice is injustice” means that all corrupt officials must be investigated and charged, then it is a democratic principle. If it means that Marcoleta should not be touched until everyone else is charged first, then it becomes a shield. The cure for selective justice is not selective exemption. The cure is universal accountability.
This is where the INC position becomes weak. It says accountability, but its immediate mobilization surrounds Marcoleta. It says transparency, but the political bargain behind bloc pressure remains unclear. It says democracy, but the action places pressure on institutions before the legal process can unfold. It says peace, but the result is disruption for workers and commuters. It says justice, but the emotional message is that the legal pursuit of one adherent is persecution.
The flood-control scandal is the material basis of this crisis. It is not a literary metaphor. It is concrete, water, ghost projects, budget insertions, contractors, and stolen public money. AP reported Senate testimony that flood-control projects were allegedly made substandard to allow large kickbacks to legislators and officials. TIME reported that mass protests in September 2025 called for “radical change” amid anger over flood-control corruption, unfinished projects, rigged contracts, and lavish elite displays. Reuters later reported that the scandal and energy crisis contributed to a lowered Philippine growth forecast in 2026.
The White Ribbon March, Black Friday protests, and other anti-corruption mobilizations pointed toward this broader structure. The White Ribbon Movement was formed by interreligious leaders and led an anti-corruption rally at the EDSA People Power Monument, while the continuing protests were directed at corruption and institutional accountability rather than the defense of one accused official. The difference is decisive. A movement that says “investigate without discrimination” widens the struggle. A movement that says “protect our man” narrows it.
The Marcos-Duterte conflict now threatens to swallow the anti-corruption struggle. One camp exposes the other, not because it has become pure, but because it seeks advantage. One faction points to ghost projects, another points to confidential funds, another to campaign contributions, another to impeachment. Each camp discovers accountability when accountability wounds the rival. The people must not be turned into the cheering section of either side. They must demand investigation of both camps, both dynastic networks, both sets of allies, and all contractors and officials tied to the theft of public funds.
PLM is correct to warn that religious organizations must not allow their moral authority to be used by factions of the ruling class. There is nothing wrong with churches, mosques, religious organizations, and faith communities entering public life. There is nothing wrong with mobilizing believers for justice. But the proper role of religious institutions is to stand with the people in the struggle for social justice, human rights, decent livelihood, and genuine democracy. It is not to shield politicians, bless dynasties, or convert legal accountability into religious grievance.
The religious question is therefore not whether faith has a place in politics. Faith has always shaped public life. The question is whether religious power serves the people or serves faction. When religious institutions defend the poor, shelter the persecuted, oppose dictatorship, and demand justice for all, they become public conscience. When they bless dynasties, mobilize for allies, and turn prosecution into persecution when one of their own is touched, they become instruments of bloc power.
The anti-corruption movement must also guard against elite liberal capture. It must not be reduced to polite outrage, moral symbolism, or one-day marches that leave the structure intact. It must demand independent investigation, public access to procurement records, scrutiny of campaign finance, disclosure of beneficial ownership, freezing and recovery of stolen assets, prosecution across party lines, and protection for whistleblowers. It must investigate confidential funds, unprogrammed appropriations, budget insertions, contractor monopolies, and the role of political endorsements in state capture. Without this, accountability becomes performance.
Yet after all this is said, one must ask the harder question: is disciplined sobriety enough? Is it enough to call on the people to remain calm while corruption remains organized, while dynasties remain armed with money and machinery, while prices rise, wages stagnate, land remains concentrated, and the old state continues to ask the poor for patience? It is correct to defend lawful protest, disciplined organization, and the widest possible democratic unity. It is correct to warn against adventurism, provocation, and reckless actions that isolate the people from their own cause. But it is also dishonest to speak only of order when the system itself is disorder. The people are told to be sober while the corrupt steal soberly, legislate soberly, hide assets soberly, hire lawyers soberly, and negotiate immunity soberly. The ruling class demands calm from below while practicing plunder from above.
This is why the unrest that erupted during the Manila anti-corruption protests must be understood politically, not merely criminally. The broader September 2025 anti-corruption demonstrations were largely peaceful, but AP reported violent clashes near the presidential palace involving a smaller group that threw rocks and firebombs, vandalized property, and were dispersed with tear gas; police reported arrests and injured officers, while it was unclear whether those involved were connected to the larger peaceful rallies. (AP News) The state will call this lawlessness. The cautious will call it provocation. The comfortable will call it mob behavior. But a serious movement must ask why such restlessness appears at all. It does not fall from the sky. It grows from accumulated humiliation: floods that drown the poor while flood-control money disappears, wages that cannot carry a family through the month, land that remains in the hands of landlords, prices that rise faster than work, and officials who ask for patience while displaying impunity.
The point is not to romanticize riots. A riot is not yet a revolution. Fire without organization can burn the people themselves. Rage without program can be diverted by police agents, factional operators, lumpen adventurists, or ruling-class provocateurs. The people’s movement must not surrender itself to actions that give the state an excuse for repression while leaving the structure of corruption intact. But neither should the movement speak as though legality, by itself, is enough. Lawful behavior in an unlawful social order can become a cage if it is separated from mass power, sustained pressure, workplace organization, peasant struggle, and the refusal to let institutions bury the truth.
The anti-corruption protests already showed that the people are not satisfied with ceremonial outrage. TIME reported that demonstrators called for “radical change” amid mass anger over alleged flood-control corruption, unfinished projects, rigged contracts, and elite displays of wealth. Reuters reported that the corruption scandal helped push down the 2026 growth forecast while inflation and an energy crisis sharpened economic pressure. Reuters separately reported that electricity prices have soared, with Filipino households spending around 12 percent of income on power in a country with little subsidy support compared with neighbors. In such conditions, to preach calm without demanding structural rupture is to preach submission.
The Filipino people cannot be asked to remain forever in the posture preferred by the ruling class: peaceful enough to be photographed, angry enough to be quoted, but not organized enough to threaten power. They cannot be told to embody the patience associated with Martin Luther King Jr. while being warned against the militancy associated with Malcolm X, as though history permits the oppressed to choose only one emotional register. Even King’s nonviolence was not passive; it was disciplined confrontation against unjust order. Even Malcolm’s militancy did not arise from abstraction; it arose from the lived fury of a people denied dignity. The rulers always prefer a harmless King and a caricatured Malcolm. They praise restraint when restraint protects property, and condemn anger when anger exposes the violence already built into poverty.
This is why the anti-corruption struggle cannot be separated from agrarian injustice, low wages, high living costs, unemployment, housing insecurity, and the wider crisis of national sovereignty. Farmers’ groups continue to insist that agrarian reform remains unfinished decades after CARP, while reports in June 2026 quoted farmers saying the promises of land reform must finally be completed. A people drowning in floodwater cannot be told that corruption is merely a legal issue. A worker whose wage is devoured by transport, rice, electricity, rent, and debt cannot be told that accountability begins and ends with court filings. A peasant without land cannot be told to wait for institutional reform while landlords, local dynasties, and armed power remain intact. The scandal of ghost flood-control projects is not only a scandal of procurement. It is a scandal of class rule.
Nor can the internal crisis be separated from the tug of war between the two great imperial powers pressing upon the archipelago. China continues to assert maritime claims in the South China Sea, including patrols near Scarborough Shoal, while Manila rejects those claims as unlawful. At the same time, the United States and its allies continue to expand military exercises with the Philippines; Reuters reported that Balikatan 2026 involved more than 17,000 troops and included the United States, the Philippines, and allies such as Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Japan. China is not a liberator, and the United States is not a savior. The people must reject becoming pawns in the contest of two powers: one pressing from the sea, the other returning through bases, drills, arms, and strategic dependency. National sovereignty cannot be built by choosing one master against another.
Thus the question of action becomes unavoidable. If legal protest is ignored, if investigations are delayed, if corrupt officials bargain among themselves, if courts move only when factions shift, if the poor are told to wait while the powerful negotiate, then the people will search for forms of pressure beyond polite appeal. The duty of a serious movement is not to scold the people for anger, but to organize that anger into disciplined, democratic, mass power. Sobriety is useful only when it sharpens struggle. Sobriety that becomes passivity is surrender. Militancy is necessary only when it serves the people. Militancy that becomes blind destruction is waste.
The answer, therefore, is not to worship legality nor to worship unrest. The answer is to build a movement capable of going beyond the narrow parameters set by the ruling class without abandoning the people to chaos. Such a movement must defend the right to protest, confront police repression, reject factional manipulation, expose every corrupt bloc, and connect anti-corruption demands to wages, land, prices, housing, healthcare, sovereignty, and democratic control over public wealth. It must be strong enough to say that riots are a symptom of social decay, but organized people’s power is the cure. It must be clear enough to say that Marcos and Duterte factions both belong to the old order, that religious blocs must not shield their own, and that neither Washington nor Beijing can solve the misery created by domestic plunder.
The papers of the twentieth century often wrote in stark terms because they understood that politics is not only about declared principles. It is about class position, institutional power, and the social force behind slogans. “Democracy” can mean the rule of the people or elections among oligarchs. “Peace” can mean social harmony or silence under repression. “Accountability” can mean justice for all or revenge against enemies. “Transparency” can mean opening the state or exposing only the rival faction. The task of political writing is to strip the slogan and ask: whose interest does it serve?
By that test, the INC rally remains suspect. Its members had the right to gather. Its criticism of selective justice may contain valid points. Its concern over corruption is not automatically false. But its immediate function was to defend Marcoleta. Its timing was tied to his legal peril. Its moral language was used to question the legitimacy of an investigation before the courts could determine the facts. Its mass pressure risked projecting the message that institutional accountability can be contested by organizational capacity.
The Trillion Peso Marches statement was therefore correct to call on Filipinos to reject attempts to transform democratic symbols into instruments for protecting those who should instead be subject to the law. That is the decisive formulation. The symbols of democracy belong to the people, not to any individual, dynasty, religious organization, or partisan coalition. EDSA belongs to the memory of popular resistance against impunity. It should not become a refuge for any politician seeking shelter under the weight of organized support.
The same statement also reiterated the need for a thorough, impartial, and independent investigation of all individuals implicated in alleged corruption, including flood-control anomalies and other cases, regardless of political affiliation. This is the universal principle that must guide the struggle. Marcos camp, Duterte camp, opposition, religious ally, business patron, contractor, legislator, local executive, cabinet official — none should matter as identity. Evidence should matter. Public trust should matter. The stolen money should matter. The people should matter.
That is also the point at which PLM, Bayan, the Trillion Peso Marches coalition, and Bishop Bagaforo’s pastoral warning converge despite differences in tone and ideology. PLM speaks of ruling-class factions and the need for an independent movement. Bayan warns against sectarian interests hijacking accountability. The Trillion Peso Marches coalition defends assembly while rejecting the use of institutional power to place officials beyond accountability. Bagaforo defends democratic expression while reminding organizers not to harm the public. Together, these interventions form a democratic front against two dangers: state repression on one side, and factional capture of dissent on the other.
This is the proper line: defend the right, question the intent. Defend the assembly, criticize its function. Defend INC members from repression, but reject the use of INC power to shield Marcoleta. Defend due process, but reject immunity. Defend EDSA as a public space, but reject its appropriation by any faction. Defend accountability, but insist that it apply to all.
The people must also remain alert to the possibility that the Marcos-Duterte conflict may produce attempts at destabilization, withdrawal of support, or elite rearrangement without democratic transformation. PLM warned that Marcos’s fear may not only be the number of people on EDSA, but the possibility that mass mobilization could create conditions for withdrawal of support by the AFP, PNP, and other institutions. Such a scenario would not automatically serve the people. A mere transfer of power from one faction to another would not dismantle corruption. It would simply rearrange the chairs of the same ruling order.
Therefore, the people must not allow their anger to be drafted into elite maneuvers. The proper target is not only one palace occupant but the system of dynasties, contractors, confidential funds, unprogrammed appropriations, campaign finance secrecy, and religious-political bargaining. The proper demand is not merely “Marcos resign” or “Sara takeover.” The proper demand is: investigate all, prosecute all, recover all stolen funds, dismantle dynastic protection, open public records, and build institutions answerable to the people rather than to families, parties, churches, or contractors.
In this sense, the question of Marcoleta is not isolated. He is a test case for whether accountability can pass through the walls of religious and political protection. If the law is weak, expose its weakness. If the evidence is insufficient, let the case fail. If the prosecution is selective, widen the investigation. But if a public official can avoid scrutiny because a religious organization can fill EDSA, then the republic is weakened. The message to every powerful actor will be clear: build a bloc, command a crowd, claim persecution, and bend accountability into negotiation.
The people must refuse that lesson. They must insist that no person is above the law, no institution above criticism, no church above public accountability, no dynasty above investigation, and no faction above the people. They must reclaim dissent as a weapon of the masses, not a shield of the powerful. They must reclaim EDSA as a symbol of democratic accountability, not a stage for selective immunity.
Questioning the intent of the INC rally is therefore not an attack on dissent. It is an act of democratic defense. It protects the meaning of dissent from being emptied by factional use. It protects the anti-corruption struggle from being captured by rival camps. It protects religious freedom from being confused with religious impunity. It protects EDSA from becoming a monument not to people power, but to organized pressure.
The final lesson is clear. In this crisis, every faction will speak the language of the people. Marcos will speak of order and accountability. Duterte forces will speak of betrayal and restoration. INC will speak of transparency and selective justice. Contractors will speak through lawyers. The palace will speak through procedure. Senators will speak through investigations. But the people must ask the decisive question: does this line make all power answer, or does it protect one camp from answering?
If it widens accountability, it belongs to the people. If it narrows accountability around one adherent, it belongs to faction. If it names both Marcos and Duterte, it begins to strike the system. If it protects Marcoleta while speaking of corruption, it remains trapped in the system. If it calls churches to stand with workers, the poor, and victims of theft, it has democratic content. If it turns religious authority into a shield for an accused politician, it is moral power misused.
Only then does accountability cease to be a slogan. Only then does EDSA remain the property of the people. Only then does dissent become a weapon of the masses rather than a shield of the powerful.
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Associated Press. (2025, September). Philippine flood-control projects made substandard to allow huge kickbacks, Senate inquiry told. (AP News)
Bagaforo, J. C. (2026, July 1). Statement on public assemblies, quoted in LiCAS News Philippines. (LiCAS News)
Bayan. (2026, July 1). Statement on the INC surprise protest, reported by Balita. (Balita)
GMA News. (2026, July). Ombudsman: Plunder charges vs Marcoleta to proceed despite EDSA rally. (AP News)
Inquirer.net. (2026, July 1). Tindig Pilipinas hits INC rally backing Marcoleta. (Inquirer.net)
Partido Lakas ng Masa. (2026, July 1). Pahayag ng Partido Lakas ng Masa sa nagaganap na INC rally sa People Power Monument. (Philippine Socialist Movement)
Reuters. (2026, April 20). Philippines, US and allies start military exercises testing “real-world” readiness. (Reuters)
Reuters. (2026, April 30). China holds naval, air patrols near Scarborough Shoal as Philippines, US stage drills. (Reuters)
Reuters. (2026, June 22). Philippines cuts 2026 growth forecast, citing graft scandal and energy crisis. (Reuters)
Reuters. (2026, June 28). Philippines leads the world in rush to solar as power prices soar. (Reuters)
TIME. (2025, September 21). Filipinos call for “radical change” in mass protests over flood money corruption. (Time)