When the truth gets subverted and we no longer get the real truth, that’s when nasty rumors surface. Supposedly by yesterday noon, the four-day protest rallies by the members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) should have already been terminated because the INC leaders and the government have come up with a deal of sorts. But what kind of deal has been hatched we have yet to know. But is this row really at an end?
But while this deal was supposedly hatched in Manila, I found a report on Facebook that, the INC members in the South District held an indignation rally against Department of Justice (DoJ) Leila de Lima here in Cebu City where the INC assembly walked from the INC District office in Mango Ave. passing by the Fuente Osmeña and marched all the way to downtown Cebu City and into the Plaza Independencia.
What really is at stake here? The INC leadership committed to rally against the DoJ Secretary and sought for her ouster supposedly by noontime yesterday. However we haven’t heard any reports that Sec. De Lima has been removed or fired. So will the INC leadership escalate their protest marches, which have already become nationwide? I reckon that the credibility of the INC leadership here is on the line.
If the INC does not get what it wants from the Aquino regime, it might commit more members into this protest march against Pres. Aquino to force him to fire Sec. De Lima. If the President blinks, then the INC leadership gets its credibility fully restored. If not, many people believe that the INC as a church will suffer a serious setback or even breakup. So will the INC escalate their rallies?
In my book, the INC leadership has already added more to their demands other than the ouster of Sec. de Lima… to justice for the 44 fallen Special Action Force (SAF) versus the Aquino Regime. But wait! Where was the INC last Jan. 25 when the entire nation was horrified at the news of the Maguindanao massacre?
Worse was when the flag draped coffins of the fallen 44 arrived at the Villamor Air Base and P-Noy chose to go to a plant inauguration, all the more it angered the Filipino people. But we only heard total silence from the INC leadership because it is more than obvious to us that the INC supported P-Noy… until they had their internal squabble that ended in the alleged kidnapping of INC executives.
I submit that DoJ Sec. de Lima is right in investigating that INC row, where kidnapping may have been committed. However, the DoJ Secretary cannot insist on the rule of law, when she herself has failed to throw the book at the 20 Senators and 100 Congressmen implicated in the Janet Lim Napoles files. Since de Lima has become the “Queen” of Selective Justice… the INC as a loyal yellow supporter or ally of P-Noy Aquino is only demanding what his allies have been getting from the DOJ in selective justice.
Meanwhile in what I would call the irony of ironies, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is also facing tens of thousands of protesters seeking his ouster for allegedly pocketing some $700 million in his personal account purportedly from still unidentified foreign donors. In an ironic twist the people seeking his ouster are all wearing yellow shirts!
PM Najib is considered a very close friend of Pres. Aquino. But since former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has not yet disclosed to the public who are the foreign donors that gave illegal money to Najib, I got a lot of nasty text messages from friends that Pres. Aquino could be one of these foreign donors. I would like to believe that P-Noy is upright enough not to engage in corruption himself.
But I have always believed in that quotation, “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are!” Prime Minister Najib has been known to be so close to P-Noy, people say that if anything goes wrong with the Aquino Presidency and he is ousted from power, Malaysia’s Najib would give him the sanctuary he needs. This is why Malaysia despite their non-neutral stand on the Sabah issue shouldn’t have brokered the peace between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government. But it went along anyway because of his links with P-Noy.
So for the sake of transparency… we would like to know from the Malaysians who are these foreign donors whose $700M was found in Najib’s personal account? According to the reports we are reading, the entry of former Prime Minister Mahathir is the last straw for Najib and Malaysians believe that he won’t last long.
Finally, the INC rallies in EDSA will not result in a People’s Power Revolt simply because EDSA 1 was a unique type of revolution. But if you recall, when the mass of protesters trooped to Malacañang demanding the ouster of then Pres. Erap Estrada, he immediately quit!
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com.