Philippines: Religious Group Gathers Millions For ‘National Rally For Peace’

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By Inday Espina-Varona and Ronald O. Reyes

(UCA News) — Close to 2 million people of an influential Christian group gathered in Manila on Jan. 13, demanding to stop congressional efforts to impeach the vice president and daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Members of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC or Church of Christ) gathered for a Peace Rally amid the ongoing feud between President Ferdinand Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte.

“Let us show displeasure of leaders who seek to divide and conquer, who foment chaos in a bid to wrest power,” the Church group’s minister for evangelization, Rommel Topacio, said while addressing the crowd.

He asked political leaders not to use their positions for personal gain or to sow conflict. Instead, he told the cheering crowd that leaders must focus on public service and strengthen peace.

When he said, “INC is for…” the crowd roared back, “Unity! Unity.” They also shouted for peace in his directive. 

According to the Manila City Public Information Office, the crowd jostled for space as 1.8 million people gathered inside a public park that can take only 600,000 people.

Police said similar rallies were held in ten cities of different provinces nationwide.

As the rally progressed, traffic came to a standstill on many of the capital’s roads, which became parking lots for around 15,000 vehicles ferrying rally participants. 

Observers say the event showed the political clout of the 2.8 million group, which can swing elections through bloc voting in the Catholic-majority nation of 117 million people that goes for a mid-term election this May.

The rally comes ahead of the campaign season for the midterm elections, seen as crucial for those seeking to succeed President Marcos. 

The elections are also seen as a referendum on former president Duterte, whose bloody war on drugs has been exposed over two years of congressional probes as a mask for the rise of new narcotics and cybercrime cartels led by friends and favored police officers. 

Critics called the rally a muscle flexing to save Duterte from impeachment. 

A recent survey showed that 41 percent of Filipinos favor Duterte’s impeachment for graft and corruption, bribery, and the betrayal of public trust. 

Politician and activist France Castro said the rally was “a calculated move” to protect Vice President Duterte from answering “serious allegations about her misuse of confidential funds.”

Former senator and justice secretary Leila de Lima said INC members “cannot hide that most Filipinos want the vice president impeached.”

Opposition groups, including the Clergy and Citizens for Good Governance, plan a concert rally on Jan. 31 at the historic EDSA Shrine.

Millions of Filipinos gathered near this shrine in 1986, leading to the ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the current president’s father.

Former Negros Occidental Governor Rafael Cosolluela said the rally “sends the right messages … at the wrong time.”

He said the rally came at a time “when the focus should be on ferreting out the truth, prosecuting the suspected culprits, correcting the corrupted national budget and putting an end to the cancer of corruption and mal-governance.”

He said rally organizers and supporters want citizens to believe political peace is more important than correcting “outright fraud and political corruption.”

“Who benefits? Certainly not the ordinary and suffering Filipinos, and certainly not our bedeviled nation,” said Coscolluela.

UCA News

The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News, UCAN) is the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia. A network of journalists and editors that spans East, South and Southeast Asia, UCA News has for four decades aimed to provide the most accurate and up-to-date news, feature, commentary and analysis, and multimedia content on social, political and religious developments that relate or are of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia.

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