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Senate hearing on the Socorro Bayanihan Services Inc. (SBSI) revealed a riveting tale of alleged sexual, physical and psychological abuse perpetrated particularly against children by a cult led by Jey Rence Quilario, aka Senyor Agila. Based in the island municipality of Socorro in Surigao del Norte, SBSI has acquired enormous influence among a significant number of island residents, enough for them to turn their backs on their normal lives to join a

community of believers that has nested in the several hectares of protected area to which the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has granted them tenurial rights.

Teachers, government workers and policemen left their posts, and entire families abandoned their homes to join others to live communally in what was referred to as the “Kapihan.” The promise of salvation must have been so powerful that these people would surrender their choices and freedoms, even their wealth, to Senyor Agila. Parents would tolerate their young daughters being offered for marriage to much older men, even as their young sons would be conscripted to train as part of the paramilitary force that practically behaves like Senyor Agila’s private army. For a pudgy man so young, and would even appear hesitant and naïve under questioning by the senators, Quilario, aka Senyor Agila, did not appear as powerful as he was imaged. The optics did not simply match the myth around the man.

However, nothing is extraordinary about this. Cults emerge not solely to worship flawless, charismatic and superior human beings. As a matter of fact, many cults are formed around persons who possess deepseated imperfections but are able to project themselves as being the key to some form of redemption. Cults emerge among people who are troubled by problems and find their salvation in one charismatic person who bears the template for their beliefs, behaviors and customs.

Cults essentially subsist on authoritarian leadership and forms of control. There is some sense of dependency developed not only on the leader but on the group ethos that sustains the collective, outside of which the individual would feel vulnerable. Extremism naturally thrives within the culture of cults, embodied in members who hold dogmatic views. The cult leader is seen as an embodiment of perfection, even as the cult itself is seen as a utopia. Any criticism of the leader, or of the cult, would be seen as an existential threat. Internal dissension is dealt with severely, even as external threats are taken seriously.

One social outcome of being part of a cult is the readiness to detach and be isolated from groups and social affinities, which even include immediate families. Members now see the cult as their family. It is also a fundamental characteristic of cults to entrench their charismatic leaders as objects of veneration. Members engage in an idolatrous relationship with the cult leader and would see them as icons of perfection.

While cults have been identified as associated with eccentric people isolating themselves from the mainstream, and who are engaged in nefarious activities and bizarre forms of belief, modern cults have increasingly found themselves manifested around forms of popular culture, like movies, or personalities. One of the glaring manifestations of modern-day cults is how citizens have turned politicians into idols. This is embodied in political fanaticism and idolatry being borne by people who call themselves diehard supporters or loyalists.

Political fans can indeed behave irrationally, particularly during elections. This is deeply rooted in the manner by which politicians are largely seen not as instruments of the people’s interest, and therefore as servants to the furtherance of the people’s welfare. Instead, politicians are seen as messiahs who promise to liberate, or redeem, people from their worldly sufferings. Cults are fertilized by the presence of rising expectations in the face of growing misery, where it is now easy to image political mortals to acquire the status of a demi-god savior.

His followers imagined Ferdinand Marcos Sr. as their liberator from the threats of communism and the excesses of pre-martial law oligarchs. The cult around Marcos Sr. led to the formation of the Marcos loyalists. Benigno Aquino Jr. was seen as the one who would break the people free from the Marcos dictatorship. His death cemented the cult around him, which was what propelled his wife Corazon and son Benigno Simeon 3rd to become the natural heir apparent of the cult that since then took up the color yellow.

Thus, what we had was a battle of two political cults. While the yellow cult projected itself as the anti-thesis of authoritarian dictatorship, it was as inclusive as it was exclusive, to the point that it deployed a barrier around it, effectively labeling people as either one of them or as the “out-people” against them who are enablers of tyranny and historical revisionism. The authoritarianism of the yellow cult thrived in their sanctimonious moralism and their exclusionary elitism.

President Rodrigo Duterte came in to challenge the exclusionary narrative of Manila-centric elitism, as he gave voice not only to the regions but to the non-traditional and vulgar way of doing politics. He practically trolled and disrupted the traditional norms of the political class. The cult around Duterte gave birth to and took the form of the diehard Duterte supporters, composed of people who until now would continue to engage him in an idolatrous relationship. They even labeled him as “Tatay Digong,” which is actually a trope similar to how cults label their leaders, like “Senyor Agila.”

And thus, it came to pass. We now have a president who is the heir apparent of the Marcos cult of blind loyalty, and a vice president who is the crown princess of the Duterte cult of political fanaticism. We are now dominated by narratives that equate honest criticism of public officials as malicious demolition jobs instead of honest attempts to hold them to account.

Many people watched the Senate hearings and looked at Senyor Agila and his followers as bizarre, nefarious freaks. In reality, they are not that much different from those who turned our political leaders into demi-gods.