The INC insisted that the rallies were not at all political but moral, which means it was definitely political. Who the hell calls for "unity" during an election season, a time when lines are drawn?
The rallies were simply a show of force. What other group can force Imperial Manila to declare a local holiday just because of all the traffic their event would cause? It was estimated that more than a million ballots showed up in Manila. The pictures showed a sea of ballots wearing white, flooding the streets and filling the Quirino Grandstand. This isn't even counting the ballots that held their own rally in my city. While not as dramatic as one Manila, it was reason enough for work to be called off early.
The INC has its detractors, the most fervent of which denounce it as a cult. The INC denounces the trinity, believes their founder was God's last prophet, and other boring run-of-the-mill "we know better than the Pope" stuff. Churches like these are a dime a dozen but the difference with the INC is that they're smart. To survive in a predominantly Roman Catholic country, they've had to play the political game and they play it very well.
I don't hate them. To be frank, I admire them in a political sense. I find it ironic that in a dysfunctional democracy like ours, it's only this group of weirdos that's doing things correctly. The INC is an excellent political party regardless of how one feels about their beliefs.
Critics who decry the INC's tactics of bloc voting are just salty. Why wouldn't members of the INC vote for whoever their leader tells them to? That's how political organizations in a democracy work. That they're a religious group is irrelevant. People are free to band together for any cause. In this case, I assume that the INC's cause is, at its simplest, freedom to conduct its business without interference from the government. Is it up to something nefarious? Who knows? Who cares? Everyone is up to something nefarious.
If people were smart, they'd follow the INC's example and band together to form their own voting blocs. That's how you get political power. Sadly, the most people can muster is their own local interests. Barangay Kamunggay will vote for whoever can promise something good for Barangay Kamunggay. At worst, people vote at the smallest level. They vote for whoever can provide for their family or (gasp) their individual selves.
Imagine if Filipinos got together based on an idea and formed a voting bloc to elect people supporting that idea. Crazy. Not in a low-trust society. This is what communists should be doing but instead of doing the groundwork, they'd rather hide in the jungle and pretend the eighties never ended.
The INC's "second resurrection" has a higher chance of happening than Filipinos learning to organize themselves to be a persistent threat to the system.
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