Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
FROM a spiritual perspective, the Sermon on the Mount (Gospel of Saint Matthew, 5:7) serves as the foundational belief of a strain of Christianity that calls its members “Sermon on the Mount Christians.” I do not know of any other strain more focused on helping and protecting the “poor, the weak, and the pure in heart” than that loose, largely unorganized strain.
I want to join that strain of Christianity, but deep in my heart, I know I am undeserving.
From a temporal perspective, the Sermon on the Mount is called by many wordsmiths as the “greatest speech ever written,” with Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” a distant second. In a few lines, the sermon distilled the overarching real-world application of religion: to bless and care for people on the margins, the constituencies that need caring and protection the most.
You might have an idea on where this introduction is leading. It leads into the current questions — those often asked —in the national conversation. Is the Iglesia Ni Cristo’s (INC) lightning rally last week, aimed at protecting Sen. Rodante Marcoleta — who is facing plunder charges vested with spiritual grounding, with solid biblical foundations? Does Marcoleta fall under the category of “the weak, the poor the meek, the pure in heart,” and thereby need blessings and protection?
I do not know the answer to the first question. Maybe the INC leadership can explain the biblical basis for supporting Marcoleta. On the second, I can answer based on what news archives and available public records say about him. Based on those two, the answer is “no.” In going through those records, I even deliberately skipped what Panfilo Lacson, a colleague of Marcoleta in the Senate, had said about him facing plunder charges.
So what does the corpus of available public records say about Marcoleta?
For one, Marcoleta has denied the existence of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) — which is the equivalent of mouthing the official China line on that territorial issue — despite the July 2016 ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the ultimate judge of territorial disputes. Despite the ancient maps that unambiguously and definitely place the WPS as part of Philippine territory. Despite the almost pained explanation from maritime law experts and respected former members of the Supreme Court that the WPS belongs to the Philippines. Despite the international consensus that China’s so-called nine-dash line is pure fiction. Despite the duty of every Filipino to help protect every piece of land and body of water that belongs to the country. Despite the songs sung by the Filipino fishermen of ancient times that paid tribute to their Bajo de Masinloc.
Marcoleta has also suggested that the Philippines needs to cede the Kalayaan Island Group to China, a stand shared by another Marcoleta: his son Paolo, who is a party-list member of the House of Representatives.
What do you think would happen to the two Marcoletas if they happened to sit in the National People’s Congress, then use their seats as a forum to deny China’s nine-dash line?
It is on record that flood-control corruption that rocked the country from 2016 to mid-2025 is now known as the biggest corruption scandal in our history. Billions of pesos in public funds were lost to corrupted flood-control projects funded by lawmakers’ pork-barrel allocations. Fifteen construction companies, it was learned, cornered 20 percent of the over P500-billion, pork-barrel-funded flood-control projects, mostly through rigged bids at the Department of Public Works and Highways throughout that period.
Of the 15 flood-control contractors, it was the construction companies of married couple Curlee and Sarah Discaya that bagged the biggest number of contracts. The two have been indicted and detained on graft and corruption charges. In fact, from 2016 to mid-2025, their construction companies won a total of P207 billion in public-works contracts, according to Senate records — a mind-boggling level of contracts won and without precedent in the history of public-works construction.
Guess who proposed that the government should use the Discayas as state witnesses in the flood-control corruption probe sans the restitution of the profits they had allegedly generated from substandard and even nonexistent flood-control projects? It was Rodante, and why was he proposing kid-gloves treatment for the couple, now known as the public face of the biggest official corruption in our history?
It turned out that Rodante’s wife Edna was an independent director of Stronghold Insurance during the time her husband was proposing leniency for the Discayas. The Discayas, in turn, acquired the surety bonds required for public-works bidding worth multimillion pesos from Stronghold Insurance.
Lacson, in many public statements, has been outspoken about Marcoleta’s conduct as a senator of the realm. It is many things, but never godly or noble or lofty.