“OWE HAVE lose before you win, ”says Jesus Falcis. He refers to the decision of the Supreme Court to reject, for procedural reasons, an application he filed in 2015 challenging a law which proclaims that marriage can only take place between a man and a woman. Falcis finds a silver lining in the fact that the judges saw no obvious constitutional obstacle to same-sex marriage. But he has no doubt that the effort to secure it will take decades, as it has done in rich countries.
Even by the standards of the former Spanish colonies, the Philippines has extremely socially conservative laws. It is the only country in the world, with the exception of Vatican City, to prohibit divorce (except for Muslims). The only way to end a marriage, unless you die, is to cancel it, but this can only be done for narrow reasons and at great cost. Abortion is also illegal and anyone at risk or practicing up to six years in prison. Contraceptives, although not prohibited, are the subject of violent legal battles, with opponents trying to prevent the state from distributing them.
It is not simply a heritage of colonialism or a reflection of the piety of the Filipinos. Compared to Mexico, say, another country long led by Spain where four-fifths of the population consider themselves Catholic, the Philippines is tense. A constitutional amendment and new laws passed in 1974 guaranteed Mexicans’ access to contraception. Mexico City legalized civil unions for same-sex couples in 2006 and abortion in 2007. Since then, 17 other Mexican states have legalized same-sex marriage.
In addition, Filipinos seem less conservative than the laws that govern them. More than half believe that divorce should be legal, according to surveys conducted in 2017 by Social Weather Stations (SWS), a sounder. Seven out of ten people support a law authorizing the government to distribute contraceptives to the poor, which was enacted in 2012 but has not yet been fully implemented. Many Filipinos are openly gay. Manila’s annual gay pride parade drew 70,000 participants last year despite the rain. Gay Filipinos are successful in all kinds of careers, from music to sports. In 2016, a transgender woman was elected to Congress. Last year, she was re-elected with 91% of the vote.
So why are the opinions of Filipinos so poorly represented in national law? The explanation lies in an unfortunate mixture of politics and faith. About three-quarters of Filipinos consider religion “very important”, SWS found in 2018. A study from the same year suggests that almost four in ten voters are likely to vote for a candidate approved by their church or religious movement.
In recent years, the influence of the Catholic Church has somewhat diminished. The share of Catholics who attend the church every week increased from 66% in 1991 to 46% in 2017. Father Jérôme Secillano of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of the Philippines is concerned about the erosion of traditional values. Church struggled to respond to wild popularity of President Rodrigo Duterte, who called God “stupid”, Pope “a son of a bitch” and said that a priest assaulted him when he was a child . The Catholic hierarchy has opposed Mr. Duterte’s signing policy, a war on drugs that involves cops shooting thousands of suspected dealers, to no avail.
But the diminishing influence of Catholics on politics has been offset by the growing importance of various Protestant sects. Although only about 10% of Filipinos, or about 10 million people, describe themselves as Protestants or Evangelicals, their relative fervor makes them a political lobby to be reckoned with. They tend to espouse a literal interpretation of the Bible and are therefore fiercely opposed to divorce, gay marriage and abortion, says Jayeel Serrano Cornelio of Ateneo de Manila University.
The most influential movements, which took root in the late 1970s and 1980s, include Jesus Is Lord, perhaps the country’s largest evangelical movement, as well as the mega-churches Victory Christian Fellowship and Christ’s Commission Fellowship. Iglesia Ni Cristo, an indigenous Christian movement founded over a century ago, also has approximately 2 million adherents in the Philippines. It has the largest indoor arena in the world, located near Manila, where 55,000 people can worship at the same time.
While Catholic prelates have become more reluctant towards hector politicians, evangelicals often mix religion and politics without consideration. Eddie Villanueva, for example, vice-president of the House of Representatives, is also a prominent television evangelist and the founder of Jesus Is Lord. Manny Pacquiao, who has had a career as a boxer in a Senate seat, is famous for his fanaticism. He called people in gay relationships “worse than animals.”
The nature of the Philippine political system makes it easy for these conservatives to thwart liberal reforms. The parties are weak, making it difficult to build momentum for controversial causes. And the Senate, which must approve all bills before they become law, presents a particularly formidable obstacle. Its 24 members are elected in extremely competitive elections in a single national constituency. Mobilizing votes across a country of 106 million people is a huge undertaking, making it unwise for candidates to alienate any large influential group. It is not surprising that the opening of a museum dedicated to Iglesia Ni Cristo in September attracted no less than half of the country’s senators. Even the richest member of the body, Cynthia Villar, decided that she couldn’t miss it.
Strong religious opposition helped delay the adoption of the law authorizing the government to distribute contraceptives by 13 years. Even after its adoption, Congress refused to fund it adequately, leaving many poor Filipinos without access to modern birth control. The Catholic Church, for its part, persuaded the courts to issue an order restricting the types of contraception that can be provided by law, on the grounds that certain methods amounted to abortion.
The ongoing battle bodes ill for the bill to legalize the divorce that is currently before Congress. Mr. Duterte’s marriage was canceled after a court ruled that he was so business-savvy that his wife, 27, was only a name. Yet religious opposition to the bill is so strong that even Mr. Duterte does not support it. Nonetheless, argues Carlos Conde of Human Rights Watch, a lobby group, the continued attempts to introduce Liberal bills despite their low chances of success are an encouraging sign in themselves. ■
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the title “Papal Power”