It looks, feels, and seems like a dud: after all, the Iglesia Ni Cristo had insisted that this would be a three-day rally at the Luneta. Where its members would come out in droves, stay overnight, sustain a protest long enough to prove a point (maybe?) ala EDSA 1986.
But at the end of Day 2, November 17, INC leadership declared: their people are tired. This, despite having prepared for three days, bussing people in, tents packed, making food available, and the City of Manila ensuring hygiene and cleanliness. This, despite an early Day One on Sunday, when the program finished early.
The high point of the day was the INC leadership refusing entry to pro-Duterte Maisug members carrying placards calling for Bongbong Marcos to resign.
Surprises
Which is to say that was a high point for us who were just watching this unfold. The decision of the INC leadership to refuse Maisug members was a monkey wrench in the narrative of the Duterte destab strategy, given that its propagandists had blabbered to high heavens about the three-day rally being D-Day for the Marcos leadership.
This is it! This is our chance! They screamed in so many words at their Tiktok audiences. We have an opportunity here to finally kick Marcos out! The expectation of course was that the INC members would be on their side, which is to say the expectation was that the INC leadership would want to kick him out, too. We all know how that meme goes: reality is far from expected.
In reality, despite the Duterte propaganda going on overdrive with content in the lead-up to the weekend rally, INC organizers chose to focus on calls for transparency and accountability only—no more, no less.
This meant that despite the announcement of a signature campaign to show their support for jailed Duterte which is to be launched on November 23… Despite Zaldy Co releasing a video implicating the President… Despite Gloria Macapagal Arroyo talking about succession at the Office of the Vice President’s anniversary and book launch… Despite the magnification of the call to gather at EDSA or Luneta to take a stand against corruption, calling on all of us beyond political colors, to join them… Despite the desperate attempts to, on the one hand, call for unity against corruption, and on the other, to bully us into joining because otherwise we have “blood on our hands”…
Despite a Duterte destab strategy that is now clearly built to oust Marcos and install Duterte, the reality was that the INC was not going to have any of it.
And so there they were, the Duterte loyalists, standing in the midst of the crowd in Luneta, silenced by the INC leadership. It was a sight to behold.
Strategies
After Day One, Sunday, the Duterte propagandists declared they were doing their own rally at EDSA on Monday, November 17, a parallel event to the INC one, because the latter was just too staid for them.
It was on that same morning of November 17 that Sara Duterte, the woman they seek to install as president, addressed the nation, declaring in no uncertain terms that “The President now faces a profound crisis of confidence, especially in the way these corruption investigations are being handled, which appear to lack both direction and resolve.”
The rest of the day was uneventful, until the evening, when presidential sister and Senator Imee Marcos took to the INC stage in Luneta—live streamed at EDSA for good measure.
In her award-winning role as elder sister, Manang Imee, complete with crocodile tears, implored her younger brother “ading” “Bonget” to “come home”—her way of calling for the President to step down, because he is unwell, addicted as she alleges he is on cocaine, confirming—to the celebration of Duterte vloggers—what has been a long-drawn out content bucket of “Marcos Vangag!” content that has festered on Tiktok, complete with a song and dance.
After the Senator’s performance, the INC declared the rally over, a day earlier than planned. Its members are tired, the INC leadership said.
But also, its members must be confused. Didn’t the INC leadership insist that this was no rally to oust the President? Didn’t the INC leadership deny entry to Maisug members carrying Marcos Resign placards? How then could it give the stage to a person who declared, in no uncertain terms, that the President must step down?
That ending was the undoing of INC’s stance on transparency and accountability, tainting the gathering as it did with the call for Bongbong to resign and for Sara to be installed.
The Duterte vloggers are of course cheering. Finally, a nail on the President’s coffin!
It’s easy to think this when you can hear the sound of one hand clapping.
Memory
To someone just watching this rally unfold from the distance of a TV screen, there was nothing here that was new or different. Especially if you are someone who has been watching the new DDS—the Duterte destabilization strategy—against the Marcos government closely.
It is in this sense that I think the rally was a dud. A non-event, mostly an exercise in the INC showing its numbers, but also (and more important) the loyalty of its members. Which of course is not what an EDSA revolution makes.
The Duterte propagandists are of course asking: how can you just ignore Sen. Imee’s claims about her brother’s drug addiction?
Simple. None of Bongbong’s public outings or decisions indicate drug use, at least to me.
Rodrigo Duterte, however, was something else. I have clear and stark memories of his slurred speech at press conferences, his inability to sustain a clear conversation, the impossibility of even keeping him on topic in the midst of a crisis. There are enough videos on his six years that show how unreliable he was when it came to information, spewing incredible statements and outright lies that his propagandists, official and otherwise, would then try to parse and skew into acceptable content.
Across the whole time he was president, Duterte’s government refused to deliver a medical bulletin. This, despite falling off his motorcycle and experiencing “excruciating and searing” pain in 2019. This, despite failing to make an appearance in April 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, on the day when the Philippines had a record-high single-day tally of cases. (His favorite “son” Bong Go then released an image of the old man playing golf and riding his motorbike to “prove” he was okay.) This, despite admitting that he had an autoimmune disease in October 2019, after admitting previously that he had “daily migraines and ailments including Buerger’s disease”. This, despite going to the ASEAN Summit in 2018 and missing six of 11 meetings because “he needed to take power naps”. This, despite having Duterte “work from home” long before the pandemic even started, in 2019.
This, despite admitting, as early as 2016, his first year in the presidency, that he had overdosed on Fentanyl: “The doctor got mad because I was supposed to cut it into four pieces, and there was a time na yung buo ang nilalagay ko, because more than just the disappearance of pain, you feel like you’re on cloud nine, like everything is okay with the world, you have nothing to worry about.”
And then he backtracked and said he was just “fooling media” into reporting that story.
This is why across the Duterte government’s six years, we all thought it was absurd to hear him talking about hating drugs, when he looked, sounded, and certainly seemed to be making decisions, like a person who can’t handle his drugs.
Bongbong, regardless of whether or not what his sister says are true, has the Duterte years going for him. We know what a drugged-up President can be like. It is not Bongbong.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
