I have been a professional journalist for the past 17 years, and every major coverage still makes me tense and jittery.

This is especially true when I have reported critically about the news subjects and have received hate messages from them. What if they drive me away? What if they mock or taunt me? Worse, what if they hurt me or damage our company equipment?

I could relate to veteran journalist Ed Lingao, who spoke about fear in a 2018 Rappler video on press freedom, which I showed my Atenean and Thomasian students last week. “Am I afraid? All the time. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in this job,” said Lingao, laughing. “Only a stupid person will be a reporter and not be afraid. So yes, be afraid. Be very afraid. But do the job.”

In my 13 years at Rappler, I have often heard a similar piece of advice from our executive editor, Glenda Gloria, reminding us to keep a healthy amount of self-doubt. No journalist can be too sure about himself or herself. Not only is it okay to be afraid; it is, at times, necessary to be afraid. 

Because to be a journalist is to be human. And despite all the human achievement over thousands of years, fear is still one of our primitive feelings.

It was this fear that I brought with me, along with water and potato chips, as our company car headed to Manila’s iconic Quirino Grandstand last Monday, January 13, to cover the National Rally for Peace of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC). 

The prayer rally, which drew around 1.58 million people in Manila, opposed moves to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, who is accused of misusing millions of pesos in government funds. 

My relationship with the INC has been complicated since I started working at Rappler in 2012. I have written articles critical of the church, including its bloc-voting practice that has made it influential in Philippine politics. Colleagues have written many critical stories, too, particularly the feud within the founder’s family. We have received hateful comments in the process.

But, more than a decade ago, our Rappler team was the secular media outlet that most extensively covered their centennial celebration on July 27, 2014. Even using the hashtag #INC100, we mounted a weeks-long special coverage, and slept for a night or two near the INC’s Philippine Arena in Bulacan. INC members thanked us profusely for covering the event.

So during our coverage last Monday, I didn’t know what to expect. 

“Lord, help us,” I silently prayed.

What surprised me was, as we started walking from our parking area to Quirino Grandstand, passing by the National Museum, INC members started waving and yelling, “Eyyy!”

“Picture, picture!” “Selfie, selfie!”

At every stop, INC members would wave and strike a pose, while I said hello, took their photos, and asked them a few questions. “Ingat po (Take care)” was my way of saying goodbye.

Then came the interviews.

First of all, I was so nervous to introduce myself as a Rappler reporter. What if they give me a piercing look? What if they rant about our newsroom or simply walk away? What if they gang up on me and who knows what’s next?

Surprisingly, many of them know Rappler, but they didn’t mind talking to a Rappler reporter. 

Wearing white shirts and sitting on colorful mats, they brought food and water and held up their INC banners. Many young people also attended the event, singing and dancing to the music that was being played onstage hours before the rally. 

“Why are you here?” I asked them in Filipino.

Many of them echoed the official line of the INC: “I support the opinion of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. opposing the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.”

“Some people say you were paid to attend this,” I asked.

“No,” a male INC member said. “The Iglesia is one in standing for a peaceful leadership and a peaceful life for Filipinos.”

“We went here out of free will, so that we can unite ourselves behind our leader to push for peace in the world,” a female member said.

I cannot forget the group of INC members from Perez, Quezon, who waved at our camera as we were shooting my spiels. I was actually about to end the report— “Paterno Esmaquel, Rappler, Manila” — when I saw them in the background.

I stopped, looked at them, and greeted them back. I suspended my extro and proceeded to interview them, too. (You can watch that exact moment in timecode 04.48 of this video report.)

“Unity and peace in our land!” one of them said, waving her hands in the air while her companions cheered.

“What can you say about comments that you were paid to attend?” I asked.

“Chismoso sila (They are gossipers)!” she said.

It was not the kind of conviction of a paid hack. 

In these interviews, I sensed the sincerity of the INC members in fulfilling their religious duty. Laughing, dancing, singing, and chatting with family and friends, they did not show signs of being forced even on the level of body language. 

I remember the way they smiled at me, and the way I smiled back.

The mood in Luneta, as I said in a video report, was electric. It was like a concert, I even caught myself swaying to the music!

Later that afternoon, INC spokesman Brother Edwil Zabala, better known as “Ka Edwil,” generously let the Rappler team into the tightly guarded backstage of the Quirino Grandstand. Before this, I even thought Ka Edwil would shun me or tell me to leave, considering the history between Rappler and INC. Instead, he asked one of the ministers to fetch us at the entrance. 

They brought us to the media center of the INC rally, and later invited us to eat with organizers in an adjacent room. I looked for a vacant table and occupied one with two media staff of SMNI, the TV station of the controversial Pastor Apollo Quiboloy. When at first I thought only potato chips would fuel me till the evening, we had roast beef, lechon, and cheesy baked salmon. 

In the media center, Ka Edwil remembered the times I covered the INC many years ago. He thanked me for coming to their prayer rally last Monday, and then we took a photo together. 

The fear that I felt at the start of the coverage turned into humility.

It got me thinking about religious duty.

For people like myself who do not belong to the INC, it is easy to think of them as a brainwashed bunch of people who went to the rally against their will. If we adopt this mindset, then the 1.58 million people at the INC rally are nothing more than pawns used by their leaders for political objectives.

I disagree with the INC leaders’ meddling in politics, including their tactic of mounting a massive rally to pressure lawmakers to reject Duterte’s impeachment.

But I also disagree with the perspective that INC members went to the rally as unthinking men and women blinded by faith.

Religious duty is complicated. For outsiders, it will never make sense. But for insiders, no explanation is needed.

Four days before the INC rally, the Quirino Grandstand was the same venue of the Pahalik and Midnight Mass for the Feast of Jesus Nazareno, which draws millions of Catholics wanting to see or touch a 16th-century image of a dark-skinned Jesus Christ. Devotees join the fiesta because they believe praying before the image can bring about miracles for them and their families in need.

Many people, including Catholics, condemn Nazareno devotees as fanatics. It is, according to critics, also a show of blind obedience.

I remember the words of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, then-archbishop of Manila, about the Jesus Nazareno devotion a decade ago: “To understand the devotee, you have to be a devotee. Only a devotee could best understand a devotee.”

We can say the same about INC members.

We cannot dismiss the INC members’ attendance at the January 13 rally as blind obedience. I believe many of them attended the peace rally out of free will — an act of wholehearted obedience to church leaders, putting religious duty above everything else. They have independence. They have agency. 

INC members are not robots but persons — which we will only understand if we meet them in the flesh and not dish out comments from armchairs.

It is easy to judge the faith of other people. But our world today needs listening ears. Do we try to understand people who are different? Do we know how to stay silent in the face of contradicting opinions? Do we know how to respect people who hold different or even “strange” beliefs?

Can we listen to them?

It is respect for others, especially those with different beliefs, that will lead to peace.

I am thankful for the hospitality of the INC members at their rally last Monday, welcoming me to their world even if I remain critical of their church’s politics. 

Standing in the middle of the crowd, as the bands played and as INC members danced, I was no longer a journalist afraid of being mobbed.

I was a human being with other human beings. 

It got me thinking about their disappointments and fears, their hopes and dreams. Perhaps, despite clashing creeds, we all aspire for the same things — for our families, our communities, and our country.

But can we first smile at each other, share a meal, and sway to the music? – Rappler.com

The Wide Shot is a Sunday column on religion and public life. If you have suggested topics or feedback, let us know in the faith chat room of the Rappler Communities app.