The Iglesia ni Cristo Templo Central in Quezon City —Inquirer photo
MANILA, Philippines — It turns out the rally for peace organized by the Christian sect Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) on Jan. 13 will be conducted at the more spacious Quirino Grandstand, rather than at Liwasang Bonifacio, preventing a chaotic Monday next week in the heart of Manila.
In a message to the Inquirer, National Parks Development Committee (NPDC) executive director Cecille Lorenzana-Romero said the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ, which had prior reserved the Quirino Grandstand for their event, agreed on Tuesday to “adjust their scheduled ingress on Jan. 14 to accommodate the request of INC.”
The NPDC, along with the city government of Manila and other authorities, will have “coordination meetings” with the organizers within the week to iron out the logistical details of INC’s event, Romero added.
READ: INC rallies in support of Marcos stand against VP Duterte impeach moves
The NPDC is an attached agency of the Department of Tourism mandated to develop, preserve, and manage Rizal Park and other national parks. The Quirino Grandstand and the adjacent Burnham Green are located in the southwestern section of the 58-hectare Rizal Park.
The INC earlier announced it will proceed with its “National Rally for Peace” on Jan. 13, expecting to draw in hundreds of thousands of its members and other religious groups who share the cause in different parts of the country.
Participants coming from the National Capital Region, Calabarzon, and Central Luzon are supposed to converge in Liwasang Bonifacio, based on the “tagubilin” (advisory) issued by the INC leaders.
INC-led rallies of the same cause will also be conducted simultaneously in different cities across the country, such as in Legazpi (Albay), Ilagan (Isabela), and Puerto Princesa (Palawan) in Luzon; Cebu, Iloilo, and Bacolod (Negros Occidental) in the Visayas; and Davao, Pagadian (Zamboanga del Sur), Butuan (Agusan del Norte), and Cagayan de Oro (Misamis Oriental) in Mindanao.
The event was organized by the INC purportedly to express their support of the stance of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. opposing the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.
Expect traffic jams
In their “Sa Ganang Mamamayang” program aired on NET25, INC’s broadcast network, on Monday, co-hosts Gen Subardiaga and Nelson Lubao disclosed that the event was supposed to be done at the much bigger Quirino Grandstand to accommodate the expected volume of participants.
The NPDC, however, denied the INC’s request.
The hosts apologized in advance for the inconvenience the INC-led rally would cause to the public, saying the event would result in heavy traffic in the area.
Asked for clarification, Romero said the INC inquired on Dec. 23 if the Quirino Grandstand would be available on Jan. 13.
“We informed them that it was not available [since] the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ will have their crusade on [Jan. 19], but their ingress will begin [on] Jan. 13,” she told the Inquirer.
The INC then wrote a letter to Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna requesting to instead hold the peace rally at Liwasang Bonifacio—a freedom park where gatherings, including rallies and demonstrations, may be conducted without the need of prior permission from authorities.
Change of venue
On Monday, the officials from Lacuna’s office met with representatives from the INC Central Office, with the city government suggesting that the venue be changed to Quirino Grandstand to accommodate the mammoth crowd expected to attend the peace rally.
“It’s a better venue since it’s bigger and easier to manage and secure. We coordinated this with the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ and had a meeting with both churches this morning (Jan. 7),” Romero said.
The meeting concluded with the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ moving their arrival at Quirino Grandstand a day after their supposed schedule—from Jan. 13 to Jan. 14.
Estimates based on Mapchecking, an online crowd-counting tool, show that Liwasang Bonifacio, including areas of the nearby Manila Hidden Garden which is maintained by the city government, can accommodate around 20,000 people. Meanwhile, Quirino Grandstand, including Burnham Green, can accommodate a packed crowd of 500,000.
According to the INC, the Jan. 13 rally is an expression of support for the President’s statement in December shunning plans to impeach Duterte following her bitter breakup with the administration and her shocking disclosure that she had arranged the assassination of Marcos, the first lady, and Speaker Martin Romualdez should an alleged plot to kill her succeed.
The President called on his supporters in Congress to drop any plan to impeach Duterte, as this would distract both the House and the Senate from their more urgent work.
4 impeachment complaints
Three impeachment complaints against Duterte were filed by civil society members and endorsed by minority lawmakers in the House of Representatives last month. A fourth impeachment, coming from the House majority members, is set to be filed next week.
INC is the third-largest religious group in the country with 2.8 million members, according to the government census in 2020. Roman Catholics predominate with over 85 million, followed by nearly 7 million Muslims.
Known for the “bloc voting” power of its members, the INC openly supported the “Uniteam” of Marcos and Duterte during the 2022 elections. The formidable tandem won by a landslide.
INC usually flexes its strength in numbers through its nonpolitical events. In August last year, it easily filled its 55,000-seater Philippine Arena in Bulacan for its evangelical mission. In May 2018, around 1.5 million INC members showed up at its “Worldwide Walk to Fight Poverty.”
The last time INC members gathered for a political cause was during their four-day rally in August 2015, in protest against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) supposedly meddling in the religious organization’s internal affairs, after then-Justice Secretary Leila de Lima ordered an investigation on the illegal detention case filed by a dismissed church leader against his fellow leaders.
The protests—which gathered more than 15,000 at their peak—started at the DOJ in Manila and later moved to the intersection of Edsa and Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong, causing massive traffic jams amid the already busy payday weekend and sale by a nearby mall.