After a stinging, high-profile defeat in December, Catholic groups in the Philippines are organizing an effort to influence congressional elections that could put the church’s political power to the test.
“We haven’t had a reason to come together and vote as Catholics,” said
Lorna Melegrito, the executive director of Pro-Life Philippines. “We
have a reason now.”
In December, lawmakers in the Philippines passed a reproductive health law — despite vocal opposition by the Roman Catholic Church
— that mandates sex education in schools, provides free or subsidized
contraceptives for poor women and puts government family planning
officers in remote parts of the country.
Ms. Melegrito said her organization was one of many Catholic groups
around the Philippines that were organizing a grass-roots campaign in
preparation for the May elections, in hopes of unseating members of
Congress who supported the reproductive health measure, popularly known
as the R.H. law.
“It is going to be a difficult campaign for the politicians who supported the immorality of the R.H. law,” she said.
Another organization, Catholic Vote Philippines, which was formed in
December in reaction to the new law, is compiling a database of locally
elected candidates, including members of the House of Representatives,
and listing how their positions align with Catholic beliefs, said Dr.
Ricardo B. Boncan, the group’s executive director.
On Tuesday, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines issued a
statement outlining the church’s position on various political issues,
including its continued opposition to the reproductive health law, and
encouraged Catholics to be politically active.
“We commend and support lay initiatives to form circles of discernment
to choose worthy candidates and even to run as candidates in order to
bring the values of God’s kingdom into the public discourse,” the
statement said.
The church’s fight against the reproductive health bill was long
successful; the measure was introduced in every new Congress for 13
years but until recently never came to a vote.
President Benigno S. Aquino III
identified the bill as a priority not long after his election in 2010,
to help address the country’s poverty and high birthrate. After it
passed the House of Representatives on Dec. 12 on a second reading — a
crucial hurdle — the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
responded with a strongly worded pastoral message titled “Contraception
Is Corruption!”
To legislators who voted against the measure, the letter said, “The
church will remember you as the heroes of our nation, those who have
said no to corruption and who care for the true welfare of the people,
especially the poor.” To those who voted for it, it warned, “God knows
and sees what you are doing.” However, the measure passed and was signed
into law on Dec. 21.
Harry Roque, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines
College of Law, said the defeat showed that the church did not wield
the political power in the Philippines that some claimed it did. He said
its influence had been diminished by its inability to deliver a
“Catholic vote,” and he noted that Philippine law generally followed
that of the United States on the separation of church and state.
Mr. Roque argued that the church’s influence depended on who was
president. Past presidents embraced and empowered the Catholic Church to
seek legitimacy, he said.
“The PNoy Aquino administration does not need any legitimizing from the
church because it has a huge popular mandate,” he said, using the
president’s nickname. “The influence of the church depends upon who is
in power and if that person needs the backing of the church.”
By all accounts, mustering a unified Catholic vote in the Philippines will be difficult.
Aurea Abrera is an example of that challenge. Ms. Abrera, 57, recently
rode by bus for seven hours through the night from the northern province
of Quezon to join more than 500,000 jostling, mostly barefoot Catholic
devotees at a predawn procession here in the capital.
“I am a believer,” she said, looking frail and exhausted as she stood in
Rizal Park in the intense afternoon sun.
But she is opposed to her
church’s position on contraception.
“We needed this law,” she said “We have so many poor children scattered around our streets,” she added,
gesturing to a group of street children foraging in a trash can. “The
church doesn’t tell me what to think.”