THIS January 13, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) made good its announcement last December that it would be holding a ‘National Rally for Peace’ in support of President Marcos Jr.’s call, a month previously, in November, for Congress to not entertain any effort to remove Vice President Sara Duterte thru impeachment.
It has been nearly 3 years since the ‘Uniteam’ ticket of the President, and the Vice President swept the 2022 polls with the biggest mandate ever in our nation’s political history. The Filipino people voted them on the basis not only of their personal capacities to lead the nation but in enthusiastic support of their main political call—national unity.
This unity, after all, is what we need if we are to harvest the fruit of “inclusive growth” that the Palace said it wants to happen in the entirety of its term.
The belief is that the Marcos-Duterte tandem is the “team” they believed would propel the country back to the path of not only peace and unity but national progress as well.
But it has been all downhill since then.
Entering the second half of the President’s term, there is no denying that the country has failed to achieve national unity, nor peace, nor progress, and no amount of propaganda can cover up these facts as any man, or woman, in the street would tell you.
Jobs remains scarce, the poor remains as poor as before as the benefit of our purported economic “takeoff” fails to impact on them.
Street crimes, illegal drugs, are on the rise again and corruption—the bane of all good government– is as rampant as before, with those committing them becoming more brazen and shameless.
It is against this backdrop of a nation in increasing despair and needing a respite that we must look at the INC rally in a positive light.
The crowd expected to join—1 million in Metro Manila alone—should be seen by the President as his own supporters giving him the political backing that he needs to bend Congress into aligning their prerogatives with those of his administration.
After all, it is no secret that the INC fully backed the President and the Vice President in the 2022 polls.
The event too, should jolt our lawmakers into realizing that they cannot forever do whatever that pleases them with impunity at the expense of the nation’s larger interests.
For no matter how the present Congress tried to frame their congressional hearings as in search of the “truth” or in improving our laws, majority of Filipinos are not blind nor are they dumb not to see that everything leads to dividing the country into two warring political camps.
As life gets harder, what the people want is peace, bread and national unity, not unending political dramas.
In this context, the INC peace rally is the voicing of the public’s unspoken angst, their frustration and disgust on what has become of the country today that they are now turning to the “Heavens” to be heard.
In other words, the gathering is ‘Vox Populi Vox Dei’ (the voice of the people is the voice of God) in action.
It is now the turn of the government to do its part.