The planned protest march of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), aimed at halting efforts to oust Vice President Sara Duterte, would be respected, but talks about supporting an impeachment complaint remain off-topic for the leadership of the House of Representatives, a ranking solon contended on Thursday.

House Majority Leader Paolo Ortega asserted that the supermajority coalition in the House remained mum on their stance regarding the impeachment efforts, amid speculation that external groups, including religious organizations, have influenced members of the House on this controversial issue.

The INC announced late Wednesday that they would hold a rally in support of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call for members of Congress to refrain from initiating efforts to remove Duterte from office.

Recall that this influential religious sect had endorsed the Marcos-Duterte tandem, both of whom won the 2022 polls by a landslide.

“The INC is for peace. We don't want any kind of turmoil coming from any side,” a television host said while reading the statement of the religious group.

Despite a broken alliance with Duterte, Marcos had confirmed that he asked his allies in the House not to file an impeachment complaint against the VP, saying it would be a “waste of time” and that “none of this will help improve a single Filipino life.”

In a span of only two days, Duterte was slapped with two impeachment complaints lodged by a coalition of various organizations and endorsed by minority lawmakers—Akbayan Rep. Perci Cendaña, and France Castro, Arlene Brosas, and Raoul Manuel of the Makabayan bloc.

The Makabayan bloc announced that they had already started gathering the required one-third of signatures from House members to sign the impeachment resolution, in order to hasten the proceedings and for its eventual transmittal to the Senate. The figure is equivalent to 106 members of the current House.

However, Ortega contended that the majority bloc, some of whose members are also critical of Duterte, has not yet discussed whether they will support or oppose the petitions, despite the ongoing House investigation into her use of confidential funds, which has exposed glaring impeachable offenses.

"The majority has not made any moves, and the majority has not discussed anything [about supporting the impeachment]. I will support whatever the decision of the majority is, but we are also not ignoring what [Makabayan] is doing,” he said in Filipino.

"We've been very focused on the hearings. That's still the goal, that's still the thread of our focus in the majority. As I said, many impeachable offenses came out during the hearings, but we have not discussed it in the majority until now,” the La Union lawmaker added.

Earlier, Malacañang confirmed that the President met with members of the House for a “fellowship.” The closed-door meeting came in the wake of Marcos’ plea to lawmakers about Duterte’s impeachment.

More than 200 House members were reportedly present at the said gathering.

Ortega said the meeting had been in the works for nearly two years but faced repeated delays due to scheduling conflicts. He denied that it had political undertones and stated that there were no discussions about Duterte’s impeachment.

Duterte is under scrutiny amid allegations of irregularities in her use of P650 million in confidential funds, which were allegedly supported by fictitious acknowledgment receipts.

The complainants in the impeachment petition want her indicted for graft and corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the constitution, and other high crimes—all of which are grounds for impeachment, except for treason.