[The Wide Shot] The ‘budol’ of the Iglesia ni Cristo vote

Sol Aragones is the right instance.

The 47-year-old Aragones endorsed Rodante Marcoleta, a outstanding Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) member, for senator within the Might 12 elections. Aragones, a former journalist who ran for Laguna governor, raised Marcoleta’s hand onstage, even when he was among the many lawmakers behind the shutdown of her former community, ABS-CBN.

At least former ABS-CBN information chief Ging Reyes criticized Aragones for endorsing Marcoleta. Former ABS-CBN Digital government editor Lynda Jumilla stated, “Even in politics, there are strains you don’t cross.”

However Aragones stood by her determination, arguing that she permits senatorial candidates to affix her onstage “no matter their political shade,” so long as they assist in constructing a “correct hospital” for Laguna. “This isn’t about me anymore. That is in regards to the combat for Laguna, no matter our previous,” Aragones informed Rappler through the marketing campaign interval.

The subtext was that she wanted all of the votes she may get. Marcoleta, 72, was anticipated to command hundreds of votes in Laguna as a result of he belongs to the 111-year-old INC, which is understood to vote as a bloc each election. Based mostly on the Philippine authorities’s 2020 census, INC has 97,243 members in Laguna — a determine that features non-voters.

Guess what finally occurred?

INC didn’t endorse Aragones however her closest rival, Ruth Hernandez. The previous journalist’s camp stated it was almost certainly “as a result of she stood for ABS-CBN” earlier than, and “that stigma adopted her.”

Regardless of not getting the INC’s endorsement, nevertheless, Aragones nonetheless received as Laguna governor with round 635,400 votes. She loved a lead of round 87,500 votes over Hernandez.

So what occurred to INC’s coveted “bloc vote”?

Marcoleta’s expertise also can train us a factor or two in regards to the INC endorsement.

Do you keep in mind when he first ran for senator in 2022? Marcoleta withdrew from the race lower than three weeks earlier than the Might elections. A press release from his workplace cited his poor efficiency in pre-election surveys, and stated that the veteran lawmaker “was courageous sufficient to learn the writing on the wall.”

So the “Iglesia vote” was not sufficient to create the primary INC senator?

In 2025, when Marcoleta ran for senator a second time, he lastly received — and completed sixth within the Senate race. It proved the ability of the INC vote, many observers thought.

However a Rappler sequence, which we revealed this weekend, confirmed that Marcoleta received not due to the INC however due to former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Learn our two-part investigative report beneath:

Pulse Asia documented how Marcoleta, together with different pro-Duterte candidates, rose in survey rankings in March. Ronnie Holmes, president of Pulse Asia, stated this was “arguably on account of sympathy for the Dutertes given the arrest of Digong (the previous President’s nickname)” on March 11. 

Holmes confirmed that “the Duterte vote, particularly in Central Visayas and Mindanao, pulled up the numbers of Marcoleta.” He stated the INC issue gave Marcoleta “a little bit of an edge over different pro-Duterte candidates who did not make it, like Ipe Salvador or Jimmy Bondoc,” but it surely was not “that vital to make him win relative to the geographic votes.”

Marcoleta, in actual fact, secured the very best vote percentages in Mindanao, a Duterte bailiwick. He posted his greatest win — 65.75% of the vote — in Davao del Sur.

In his birthplace Tarlac, dwelling to a higher-than-average proportion of INC members (Tarlac is 7.5% INC, as in comparison with the church’s 3% nationwide), Marcoleta solely completed ninth. In 9 different provinces with a excessive focus of INC members (from 4.72% to six.31% of the native inhabitants), Marcoleta in actual fact misplaced.

It makes us surprise: Had Duterte not been arrested, would Marcoleta have received the Senate race?

I imagine it’s time to expose the INC vote for what it really is: a fable, a hoax, a case of bloated statistics which politicians wrongly think about as a ticket to victory.

It has at all times been believed that the INC can ship “2.8 million votes.” However this knowledge, which is derived from the 2020 Census of Inhabitants and Housing, is the INC inhabitants nationwide — together with non-voters comparable to youngsters.

For perspective, in 2025, solely round 60% of Filipinos had been registered voters, and of this quantity, solely 82% trooped to polling precincts.

We’re not even speaking in regards to the INC members who don’t observe the church’s dictates. The Social Climate Stations stated that based mostly on their earlier exit polls, round 20 to 25% of INC voters don’t vote for candidates endorsed by their church.

Sure, 75 to 80% of members vote for the INC-endorsed candidates — however do they actually vote for these candidates as a result of the INC stated so, or as a result of they actually intend to vote for them? (The INC, in spite of everything, is understood to endorse candidates who’re already common to start with.)

I go away the mathematics to consultants, however suffice it to say it’s a fable that there are “2.8 million votes” from the INC.

To maintain the “INC vote” in its correct proportion, I hope that extra academicians and civil society teams will crunch the numbers on the native degree. What number of INC members — and voters — are in every locality? What’s the statistical chance that they’ll heed the INC’s endorsement in the long run? Can they inform politicians about their analysis? Is the “INC vote” value all of the compromises that politicians make?

I additionally hope that fewer politicians would succumb to the “INC vote,” which types a part of the larger downside of transactional politics. (The INC endorsement, in spite of everything, is alleged to return at a worth: political favors comparable to appointments to plum posts.)

I used to be disturbed by the phrases of one of many marketing campaign insiders we interviewed: “If this development continues, INC will get to regulate the complete Philippines.” The issue, he stated, is that “society needs to be sturdy sufficient to face up to these items.” 

Politicians, in different phrases, ought to take the primary transfer: refuse to accord the INC an imaginary supply of energy. Don’t fall for budol or trickery. Are there politicians on the market who refused to courtroom the INC but nonetheless received an election? I hope they let their tales be heard. 

Lastly, I hope that the INC will take a more in-depth have a look at its doctrine. 

I imagine in spiritual freedom — each spiritual group has the proper to espouse its personal beliefs — however I additionally imagine that doctrines evolve via time. 

No spiritual group on this planet, not even the well-centralized, 2,000-year-old Roman Catholic Church, can declare that its doctrines have by no means developed. Sure, core beliefs stay fixed, however our studying of the world — and our interpretation of our central tenets — change via time. 

The INC’s bloc voting system is incompatible with a democracy. It’s extra applicable for a theocracy — or for a persecuted group that should vote as one to make its presence felt. 

The Philippines just isn’t a theocracy. 

And the INC, via the years, is now not “persecuted” prefer it was throughout its founding in 1914, when the default faith was nonetheless Catholic (it was the state faith till 1898) and folks of different faiths had been derided as heretics or cultists. The INC — via its exemplary members and its humanitarian program, Lingap sa Mamamayan — has already confirmed its value to our society.

In a democracy, an election is a approach by which residents — utilizing their conscience — can freely select their leaders. How does bloc voting, the place members are pressured to both observe their leaders or undergo the fires of hell, slot in a democratic system?

To be honest, even the Catholic Church had its extra political years, when popes usurped the powers of kings and religion flirted with politics to the next diploma. That was very true when the church needed to combat for its legitimacy and, in a fundamental sense, for the social, financial, and political safety and survival of its church members. 

The INC, particularly throughout its early years, has needed to combat for its survival — and its imaginative and prescient of the dominion that’s to return. 

INC dabbles in politics not for the sake of politics itself, in line with a marketing campaign insider who just isn’t an INC member. “For INC, their backside line is to avoid wasting the world. Their backside line is to avoid wasting the world via their church,” the marketing campaign insider informed Rappler.

I sympathize with the INC (and different teams that hope to avoid wasting the world), however I hope they understand their battle for survival is over.

The INC is a part of Philippine society, and its members deserve a voice of their very own.

The Philippines, too, deserves an citizens that may determine for itself, and a political system that’s free from patronage. – Rappler.com

The Huge Shot is a Sunday column on faith and public life. When you’ve got instructed subjects or suggestions, tell us within the Religion chat room of the Rappler app.