Isko Moreno says still hoping for INC endorsement
MANILA, Philippines — Manila City Mayor and presidential hopeful Isko Moreno said he is still gunning for the endorsement of the influential Iglesia ni Cristo, saying the block-voting religious group will definitely boost his bid to become the next president of the country.
"Every vote of yours is important... Every single vote when you add up is a lot. So, all kinds of help is needed,” Moreno told reporters in Filipino in a chance interview in Lingayen, Pangasinan when asked about whether he was still hoping for the endorsement of the powerful church group.
Asked if any of the INC leadership already talked to him and the Aksyon Demokratiko candidates, Moreno responded in the negative, adding that it's the candidate who should be approaching the church leaders.
“No, we go there. For me, as a matter of fact, I always ask for the help of Iglesia ni Kristo. I always write. I ask for the help of our brethren in the Church, the general manager. Everyone I ask for help because I need help. But for now, let's work together. What is our common denominator first,” Moreno pointed out.
He added that "usually they don't answer, they will tell you when."
Moreno said that when he ran for Manila mayor in 2019, he eventually secured the INC endorsement and he won, becoming the 22nd mayor of Manila despite running a close third place in the pre-election surveys at the time.
“I’m always grateful to those people who are helping us and we don’t forget those people who are with us on the way up because these are the same people that we are going to meet on the way down because principle of gravity will be applied to everybody. Anything that goes up must come down,” the Aksyon Demokratiko bet said.
The INC has an estimated 3 million members in the Philippines and in over 150 countries and territories overseas. It was founded by Felix Manalo, fondly called Ka Felix by his followers, who served as the first Executive Minister of INC. The INC usually announces its choice of candidates to support a few days before election day.
Moreno went on to push another false claim: that calls for other candidates to withdraw in order to have a one-on-one showdown between Robredo and Marcos Jr. are an indication that politics in the Philippines since 1986 has been a conflict between two families and two colors.
This, despite the past six presidents coming from four different political parties.
In the same interview, Moreno again called on the people to put a stop to what he said was the decades-long conflict between the Marcoses and the Aquinos, to vote for a candidate who will give them peace of mind and a chance for a better life.
“What I’m offering you now compatriots with just a few days before the elections, we will choose the new president of the country. Let's end the fight between red and yellow. To the businessmen, to the workers, to the mothers and fathers at home, sisters, brothers, look at your families, you are breaking up, friends are getting angry, unfriend here, unfriend there, who cancel the order at the store, as well as a saleslady at the mall instructing them to choose the particular color,” Moreno said in Filipino.
"But deep inside them they don’t like it. But, so that the poor don't bite them anymore, they just go with it."
Moreno said that the "shouting match" at the Power Plant Mall in Makati City between supporters of Vice President Leni Robredo and Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the late ousted dictator, is "just a preview of what things to come for the country if either one of them becomes president."
“What you saw in Rockwell they haven't won yet, you saw in Rockwell, they are supposed to be educated, they are supposed to be in good standing in life. What you saw in Rockwell that happened between the red and yellow/pink, that's a preview, that's a trailer of what will happen in our country. There is no silence,” Moreno said.
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