The detained former president Rodrigo Duterte has encouraged Filipinos to continue their street demonstrations, according to his daughter Veronica “Kitty” Duterte, who said she relayed news of the ongoing Iglesia Ni Cristo rally to him during a recent exchange.
Kitty described briefing her father across two days about the mass action unfolding at the People Power Monument. “Yesterday, I informed him of the protests in EDSA. Then today I informed him if tama ba ‘yung pagkabasa ko, extended until tomorrow, at tyaka medyo madami nang tao, tapos I told him na nag-red alert na,” she recounted.
His reply, she said, was brief. “Maiksi lang ‘yung sinabi niya. He said, ‘Sa mga Pilipino, ipagpatuloy niyo ‘yan.’ So take it however it means. ‘Yun ‘yung sinabi ni PRRD kasi sa abuso nila sa atin ‘no, darating ‘yung panahon na mapupuno talaga ‘yung Pilipino,” she added.
The demonstration she referred to began early on Tuesday, June 30, when INC members assembled near the EDSA Shrine, initially without a permit. The Quezon City government later authorized gatherings along White Plains Avenue and Temple Drive between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Police in Quezon City placed Tuesday’s turnout at 15,500, per Philstar, while attendance figures have varied across estimates as the action stretched into a second day.
The church framed the mobilization as backing for Senator Rodante Marcoleta, a longtime INC member facing a possible plunder case tied to roughly P75 million in campaign donations from the 2025 elections that were reportedly left undeclared. INC spokesman Edwil Zabala, in remarks carried by Net25, said the group would keep pressing its demands even if Marcoleta were jailed. Marcoleta has denied any wrongdoing and has cast the looming charges as an effort to keep him out of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, which is set to open on July 6.
The rally has since drawn commentary from figures across the political divide, including former Senate president Franklin Drilon, who questioned how the intelligence services failed to anticipate a gathering of that scale given the billions of pesos allocated to confidential and intelligence funds.
Rodrigo Duterte remains held at the International Criminal Court detention facility in The Hague, where he faces charges of crimes against humanity linked to killings during his administration’s anti-drug campaign.
