ILLEGAL DETENTION: What brought MCGI to this unchristian practice?

On paper, the service ends with a prayer. In practice, it does not end at all.

Inside many MCGI lokals, doors are locked after worship. Members remain seated. Armed with radios and authority, the group known as QUAT, the church’s internal police, takes position at exits.

No one leaves until leadership allows it.

What follows lasts one to two hours. The setting is a church. The act is detention.

Those held are not criminals. They are drivers, clerks, factory workers, vendors, office staff. They came to pray. They stay because they cannot leave. Meals are missed. Sleep is lost. Transport runs out. Morning work still comes.

Inside the locked hall, the agenda shifts. Scripture gives way to numbers. Leaders speak of deficits. Pledges are recalled. Commitments are chased. The message is not subtle. The time taken is leverage. Fatigue works as persuasion.

MCGI has long assured the public and its members that there is no coercion inside the church. “Walang pilitan,” leaders repeat. That claim collapses at the sound of a locked door. Consent ends when exit is denied. Faith cannot replace freedom.

Illegal detention does not require handcuffs. It requires restraint without lawful authority. Locking people inside a building and enforcing it with guards meets that standard. A religious setting does not dilute the act. It sharpens the betrayal.

This practice did not arise during growth. It appeared during decline.

Membership has fallen. Exiters have multiplied. Regular contributions no longer cover expenses.

As money thins, control tightens. Meetings stretch. Pressure hardens. Time becomes currency. The remaining members pay in hours, health, and silence.

Leadership does not absorb this cost. The burden travels downward. Families wait at home. Workers stumble through mornings. The institution stays afloat by taking what it can still seize.

Some former members urge peace and healing quietly. Move on they say.

That advice fails those still locked inside.

No one moves on while parents, siblings, or spouses are detained for money under religious cover. Our silence and moving on does not soften abuse. It sustains it.

There are only two exits from this structure. Members refuse unpaid time and free labor, or they leave the system altogether.

Disobedience cuts the flow. Exit ends the confinement.

Locking people inside churches to extract funds is not discipline. It is not devotion. It is force or pamimilit.

Modern society has a name for this.

Illegal detention.