Three Major Religious Groups Plan Anti-Corruption Protests Amid Speculation of Political Upheaval in Manila
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After a series of strong earthquakes and two powerful typhoons that struck the country, another storm is brewing on the horizon. It could be a more catastrophic disaster that could blow and sweep away the Marcos administration and shift political tectonic plates.
Capitalizing on people’s anger over massive corruption in public infrastructure projects, three fairly large non-Roman Catholic religious groups are jointly staging a three-day protest starting on Sunday at Rizal Park and along EDSA, from the Shrine to the People Power monument.
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The Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), Jesus Is Lord (JIL), and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) will call for greater accountability, demanding that the lawmakers, government engineers, and private contractors behind non-existent and substandard infrastructure projects be thrown in jail to rot.
They will attempt to preempt the Roman Catholic bishops’ supported “Trillion Peso Movement” protest on November 30. Business, civil society groups, students, retired soldiers, and activists are joining the protest, the last mass action against corruption before the Christmas holidays kick in.
There were widespread speculations that the November 16-18 protest would attempt to recreate the January 2001 EDSA Dos scenario, when the military withdrew its support from the Estrada government after a three-day protest at the EDSA Shrine.
It appeared that the protest organizers have pepared well enough for the event, including transportation and logistics. In a TV interview, retired general Romeo Poquiz warned that anything can happen when one million people gather at Luneta on the protest days.
Poquiz was hoping the military brass would cave in when the senior generals saw the large crowd protesting against corruption and demanding President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s immediate resignation.
Two months ago, Poquiz was among a group of retired generals who sought an audience with Armed Forces chief of staff, General Romeo Brawner Jr, and tried to convince to withdraw support from the commander-in-chief.
Brawner rejected the retired generals request, and the planned protest by a religious group was called off.
Marcos Jr. survived an insidious plot by supporters and allies of Vice President Sara Duterte to unseat him. The people behind the September 21 plot realized they could not remove Marcos from power if they would insist that a Duterte would rise as the constitutional successor.
Thus, in recent months, they changed tactics and accepted the fact that the only way for an “oust Marcos” plot could succeed was to call for a “reset”, which means the military would take over.
The November 16-18 protest is interesting because the necessary ingredients for a power grab are present. Apart from the active participation of various religious groups - the warm bodies -, there’s also a new element, the military, in the November 16-18 protest.
A segment in the military’s officer corps has threatened to take action, not against the president, but against political patronage within the organization.
The separate action could divide the Armed Forces and embolden some active-duty military officers to sympathize with anti-corruption protests.
Although the INC leadership promised not to turn the anti-corruption protest into an anti-Marcos mass action, the situation is very fluid.
The anti-Marcos forces are really looking for a potential trigger that could spark a call for the president to step down.
The death and destruction caused by the successive disasters in the country’s belly were not enough to move people from demanding that the president quit although the people blamed corruption for the flash flood that swept Cebu. They are still looking for an evidence that could directly link the president or his family to the corruption scandal.
For now, they are targeting the president’s first cousin, former House Speaker and Leye Congressman Ferdinand Martin Romualdez as the mastermind in the kickback scandal, hoping it could lead to the president’s doorstep.
the president’s poliical foes should not be easily dismissed because they could be very creative and innovative, capable of fabricating evidence and witnesses to stir the people to call for his resignation.
The sudden appearance of a retired Marine sergeant the Senate Blue Ribbon committee public inquiry was a case in point. He had disappeared after implicating the former speaker in the kickback scandal, even though the testimonies were not corroborated, and the written affidavits were questionable.
But that was beside the point; the retired Marine sergeant’s testimony was enough to plant a seed of doubt as to Romualdez’s role in the corruption scandal. In the run-up to the November 16-18 protest, it is interesting to watch what the president’s political foes could actually do to trigger an uprising and replicate EDSA 2.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of this publication.
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