The voluntary surrender of Ptr Apollo Quiboloy to the AFP (not PNP) is a significant chapter of this political game. After more than 2 weeks of searching for Quiboloy inside the KOJC compound, the PNP did not succeed.
As a political observer, I think that the chess pieces are moving. The PNP under the Marcos Jr admin made a strategy that was funded by public funds—we, taxpayers. They made a bad precedence in serving a warrant. The necessity of sending 5,000 state forces trespassing a private property for more than 2 weeks is hard to justify. This is akin to State abuse. This will become a long legal battle in between the State and the KOJC congreagation whose rights were transgressed. Torre and his flock of 5,000 State forces failed to compartmentalize Quiboloy as an individual and the KOJC members as a congregation. The voluntary surrender of Quiboloy to the AFP is a significant move in this battle between the Marcos Jr admin who has the resources of the State through taxpayers' money versus Quiboloy.
The voluntary surrender of Quiboloy exposed the weakness of Torre and the PNP despite their show of force. His voluntary surrender to the AFP showed the failure of the intelligence unit of the PNP. The execution of the operation that lasted more than 2 weeks revelead the inefficiency of the PNP. Quiboloy's voluntary surrender to the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) sent a message to the PNP that their intelligence unit is weak. Interestingly, Quiboloy's surrender to the Intelligence Unit of the AFP is just the tip of the ice berg. I have an idea, but it's not my story to tell. This surrender is actually the beginning of a long battle.
🟥 A sunlight of strategy on the part of the opposition faction led by the Dutertes.
The State's resources and energy have been focused lately on Quiboloy, but the huge motivation for this boils down to his connection with the Dutertes.
Philippine politics has always been like this. The media will play big time in this war of information and perspectives. This is the reason why major players of the Marcos Jr admin targeted SMNI, threatening their franchise. They knew that SMNI is the media arm of the Dutertes, and it does not require a huge PR fund from the Dutertes to do that.
Meanwhile, this admin would need to secure billions of money to get the support of the traditional media in the Philippines as PR partners, political parrots, and propagandists of the State. From anti-Marcos propagandists, it's amusing how Marcos Jr easily turned these media to his favor.
It would be reasonable to speculate that money has always been the name of the game in most political maneuvers in every political era, but it's very entertaining to see how these former anti-Marcos media networks swallowed their 30+ years of decaying anti-Marcos vomitus easily. I'd surmise that their 30+ years of being an anti-Marcos was also due to money, and not by principle. Now, they are releasing anti-Duterte feces. Will this anti-Duterte media of today eat their own anti-Duterte stool like what they did to their 30+ years of anti-Marcos vomitus?
🟥 SMNI, Quiboloy, and the Dutertes' soft power
Dismantling the influence of SMNI was one of the first moves of the major anti-Duterte players of the Marcos Jr admin, and I'm pretty sure that the Duterte group is aware. SMNI has been a significant soft power of the Dutertes for offerring an alternative POV of the news not framed by the traditional media in the Philippines.
With the dissolution of the relevance of the Yellow and Pink colors in our current political landscape, the most reasonable inference here is that the Philippine politics will be soon dominated by either the Marcos Family or the Duterte Family—depending on who will reign supreme in this battlefield of political wars. SMNI's presence would greatly help the Dutertes in this political war, but SMNI has been targeted by the State (e.g. the move for the revocation of its franchise).
The Marcos Kingdom has an advantage, though—due to their incumbent powers, resources, and pivot to Uncle Sam. But, the Duterte opposition is surely aware of these.
I want to be honest in my opinion. The Duterte faction is "dehado" in terms of resources and political influence because the Congress is composed mainly of pro-admin (including the political butterflies) and is being led by a Romualdez. I've seen how the Marcos Kingdom consolidated all their traditional enemies and their traditional allies to fight the Dutertes in full force. Sobrang daming bilyones ang kailangan to orchestrate a scheme of this national scale. Pero huwag naman sana nilang gamitin iyong tax money for this while they are hyperfocused on scrutinizing Sara Duterte, despite that fact that other agencies of the government are also riddled with questionable billions of spending.
On the other hand, the fact that I'm seeing the key anti-Duterte players of this admin spending gargantuan State resources to defeat the Dutertes is a validation that the Dutertes are formidable foes.
Meanwhile, I've also seen how the Dutertes subtly moved the chess pieces, but it's not my story to tell.
The surrender of Quiboloy is I think a significant move in this game of political chess. The success of the opposition group led by the Dutertes, including their allies, would basically be dependent on grassroot support. If the grassroots or the people would side the Dutertes, then the people would end the Marcos Kingdom through election—that, if Marcos Jr would not change the Constitution to extend his power.
Quiboloy's voluntary surrender to the Intelligence Unit of the AFP is a double-edged political sword. To whose benefit? That, I don't want to comment. As a political observer, again, it's not my story to tell; though I have an idea.
Have you seen how the different pieces of the chess game are moving?
• SMNI franchise revocation
• People's initiative
• KOJC condemnation
• Unprogrammed funds
• Inday Sara as the hyperfocus of media attacks
• The obvious gameplay in the transfer of the Confidential Funds to Inday a few days before the end of the fiscal year
• POGO
• Alice Guo
We are witnessing a historic political battlefield in the Philippines between a Marcos and a Duterte, and this will change the trajectory of our country's political history significantly.
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