It was a scene straight out of Martial Law.

Uniformed police officers employing superior force broke into what church members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ consider hallowed grounds and swarmed all over the place in search of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, the controversial preacher who enjoys a cult-like following not just in Davao City but even internationally. For one who did his part to campaign for the victory of the so-called UniTeam bannered by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., it was rubbing salt into an open wound.

What government and mainstream media (little to distinguish the two these days) casually reported as a process to serve the warrant on Pastor Quiboloy turned into a virtual display of the Marcos administration’s intolerance for dissent. After the whimsical suspension of local government officials who refuse to toe the line against peaceful assembly and the removal of government workers whose only sin was being appointed by former President Rodrigo Duterte, there is more to come.

This is not to mention the unannounced relief and bypass of qualified but independent military and police officials, many of whom are probably still unaware of what they did wrong. The ugly face of patronage politics has never been this blatant and shows no sign of stopping. No career employee is safe because one morsel of intrigue could change the rules.

Elsewhere, storm clouds threaten with the economy deteriorating faster than people notice. The peso has fallen to new lows with fears that it will devalue even more in the coming days. Ordinary people will tell you crime is back on the streets as crime and drug lords reclaim territories lost during the Duterte administration.

And then there is the biggest fear of all: the looming war against China. Instead of embracing the ASEAN position of neutrality, President Marcos has not only become the virtual spokesman of the United States in the region, but he has also placed the country in harm’s way with the installation of a US mid-range capability missile in the Ilocos region that will make the Philippines a target for China and Russia.

In this context, notwithstanding “the use of excessive and unnecessary force” in the hunt for Pastor Quibology, as former President Duterte called it, this unfortunate incident deserves a second and deeper look.

The recent visit of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was no ordinary break for one whose nation he has plunged into a senseless war. Zelensky, whose term was due to end this year, remained in office first by declaring martial law and then by baiting Russia to declare war, which rages until today. To say that geopolitics was evident in that visit would be redundant.

For an administration obsessed with lifting term limits, as shown by its shameless and persistent efforts to amend the Constitution, the Zelensky model is a difficult option to resist. A country in chaos justifies Martial Law 2, an event President Marcos is only too familiar with. It is not really about committing one blunder after another. In fact, there is a method in this madness because he wants to sink into that level of chaos that will justify – in the eyes of the world – the declaration of Martial Law and, with it,the perpetuation of the Marcos rule interrupted by the so-called People Power Revolution in 1986.

Slowly but unmistakably, President Marcos is checking the list for the road to Martial Law: a docile media, a submissive military and police, a dysfunctional bureaucracy, dissent, and disorder in the street. Unwittingly, the sectors traditionally critical of the government are now the biggest contributors to the preparation with their uncharacteristic silence. Owing to their contempt for former President Duterte and what he stands for, the church, academe, left, and critical media would rather prefer a Philippines run like hell by Marcos than one with Duterte at the helm.
 
No offense meant, but Pastor Quiboloy does not look like the Marcos obsession many people see the persecution to be. He looks more like a distraction for the many who cannot connect the dots that he won’t be the last but, in fact, just a piece in the puzzle.

It is a scene straight out of a Martial Law playbook.