Category: Iglesia ni Cristo

INC rally Aug. 29 at Edsa cor Shaw. Photo from GMA7news.

Vice President Jejomar Binay has become the INC’s prime protector accusing Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s investigation of reported kidnapping and detention of INC members as ”a clear act of harassment and interference from the administration.”

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., whose father ‘s two decade rule enjoyed the support of the INC , accused De Lima of “mishandling” the INC issue which he said led to the rally that worsened the already bad traffic situation in Metro Manila.

Sen. Grace Poe is a disappointment. Asked in a forum in Nueva Ecija on the INC isyu, she kept on inserting the Mamasapano massacre. Was she saying that De Lima should not touch the INC kidnapping issue until after the Mamasapano case is resolved which could be forever?

She justified the mob in front of the DOJ office in Padre Faura saying,”.. huwag rin nating mamaliitin ang importansiya ng relihiyon. Para sa akin ang mga tao na yan ang dinidepensahan nila ay ang kanilang paniniwala. Nirerespeto natin yan at kailangan pangalagaan din ang kanilang mga karapatan.”

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas tiptoed recognizing the rights of the INC members to stage a street protest but expressed concern about the public inconvenience that is is causing.”While all citizens have the right to be heard and to peaceful assembly, the exercise of these rights cannot impinge on the rights of others or cause inconvenience to anyone,” he said.

President Aquino has not said anything but the fact that he is not reining in De Lima in her investigation of the conflicts in the INC, even putting the expelled INC minister Isaias Samson under the Witness Protection, is a plus for him.

But neither is he being strict on INC ‘s flouting the law and causing so much difficulty to the public.

INC Edsa rally, Aug. 29, 2015 . From Manila Bulletin

It is well known that every election, the INC gives out a sample ballot of the candidates for their members. Many candidates plead to the INC leadership to be included in that list.

There’s no official number of INC voting members but a 2001 elections exit poll survey by Social Weather Station for ABS-CBN “found that the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) were solid in voting 8-5 according to their hierarchy’s advisory..”

According to pollster Junie Laylo, then with SWS and now has his Laylo Report, said in 2001:”
The INC’s vote strength is only about 1.2 million or 3% of the total electorate, but with a conversion rate of 68-84% that translates to about 800 thousand to 1 million votes for Senatorial candidates endorsed by its leadership. As a solid voting bloc, INC votes can be very influential in helping borderline candidates for the Senate.”

That’s true. INC votes are helpful for those who are in the number 11, 12, and 13 in the senatorial race. But if you are in the top five, INC’s non- support would not push you out of the Magic 12.

In the presidential and vice presidential race, if the contest is very tight, every vote is important. Thus, the pilgrimage of the candidates to the INC headquarters every elections.

But the INC vote cannot propel a candidate lagging behind to number one. In 1992, INC supported Eduardo”Danding” Cojuangco , who was only number three after Fidel V. Ramos and Miriam D. Santiago.

Roxas in 2010 is another good example of the non-potency of an INC endorsement. He was supported by INC but Binay won over him by 727,084 votes.
INC actually rides with the trend in making their list. Winnability, not integrity or competence, is the primary basis for inclusion in the sample ballot.

One good example is Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV in 2007.

Trillanes, who was in detention then and with not much money for his campaign, was not given a chance to win. Thus, he was not included in the INC list. But he won.

In the 2013 elections, the INC included Trillanes in its list.

De Lima, if she runs for senator, will surely not be in the INC list.

De Lima might find comforting the paper delivered by SWS’ Mahar Mangahas in Egypt in 2009 on “The Challenge of Election Surveys:SWS experience in the Philippine.

Mangahas said some of SWS’ findings in the 2007 elections was “Command voting” is limited.

“Of every five voters, four say ―most people here decide by themselves who to vote for and only one says that ―most people here are just told by the leaders whom to vote for,” the pollster said.

The current crisis in the INC all the more undermines the myth of its “solid vote.”

Iglesia ni Cristo’s list of senatorial candidates to be endorsed is interesting and intriguing.

Crossing party lines, INC’s list includes seven from Team PNoy (Sonny Angara,Bam Aquino,Alan Peter Cayetano,Grace Poe,Loren Legarda,Antonio Trillanes, and Cynthia Villar) and five from United Nationalist Alliance (JV Ejercito,Richard Gordon,Nancy Binay,Gringo Honasan and Jack Enrile).

An INC member said the day after the list was reported in media, a high ranking official of the church told them that it’s not final and changes may be made before the Monday election. That should keep the suspense among those in the list as well as those who want to get the endorsement that would be crucial in their getting into the Magic 12.

According to reliable survey groups like Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia, of all the religious groups, it’s only the INC that has proven to deliver command votes. There has been no proof of command votes delivered by El Shaddai, Jesus is Lord ( JIL was not able to make its leader, Eddie Villanueva, win in his past presidential bid. He is now a senatorial candidate and is not rating high in surveys) and other religious groups.

Although Filipinos are predominantly Catholic which boasts of 45 million voters, there has been no proven “ Catholic vote”. In this election, however, Catholic groups launched “Team Patay and Team Buhay” and the White Vote Movement, which endorsed candidates who opposed the Reproductive Health Bill.

Aside from Honasan, Aquilino Pimentel III , Trillanes, Villar, Mitos Magsaysay, and Ejercito, the White Vote Movement has added the names of Richard Gordon, Nancy Binay and Miguel Zubiri, all of UNA, to the list of senatorial candidates they will endorse.

Command votes are votes that are dictated or heavily influenced by a group, a community leader, bigtime businessmen and warlords.

At this stage of the campaign, command votes would be crucial in determining one’s inclusion in the Magic 12 for senatorial candidates who are in numbers 10 to 16 in the surveys.

The latest survey by Pulse Asia, conducted April 20 to 22, 2013 said those whose rankings are still fluid are Zubiri (10th to 16th places), Honasan (11th to 16th places), Enrile, Jr. (11th to 16th places), Hontiveros (12th to 17th places) and Magsaysay, Jr. (12th to 17th places). They would be the ones who would be seriously make affected by INC’s estimated 1.5 to 1.8 million votes.

For the frontrunners, an INC endorsement is important to be number one, especially if the senator has higher ambitions in 2016.

Some say that the INC endorsement is overrated noting that the religious group shrewdly endorses those who are almost sure winners based on the surveys, except for one or two. In 2007, INC did not endorse Trillanes who did not figure in the rankings in the early part of the campaign. Imprisoned and with no organization to protect his votes in the canvassing, Trillanes came out number 11 with 11 million votes.

INC’s list for Monday’s election does not include any candidate ranked below number 17.

It is, however, intriguing why re-electionist Chiz Escudero, who is number two in pre-election surveys, is not included in the list.

There must be some other reasons.