Catholic leaders in the Philippines haven’t stopped duterte’s bloody war on drugs — yet. this is why

How influential can religious leaders be in Philippine politics?

My research has shown that Filipinos at large believe Tagle and many of his fellow religious leaders to be very morally credible. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy turning that moral standing into political influence.

First, Filipinos have mixed feelings about religious influence on politics. In research carried out with the Social Weather Stations survey firm before Duterte took office, I found that 46 percent of Filipino Catholics agreed that “religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions,” compared with 32 percent who disagreed. Strikingly, those who attend mass regularly or claim religion is important in their lives were not statistically more supportive of religious influence than those with lower religiosity.

Political scientists have argued that this helps explain why religious actors are most effective through what academic Anna Grzymala-Busse terms “covert institutional access,” rather than overt politicking. Tagle and others have tried to exercise this kind of subtle influence. But so far “institutional access” seems to be yielding little progress on ending EJKs.

Second, ties between Catholic leaders and potential allies in civil society have frayed in the past decade as a result of a controversial bill known as the Reproductive Health (RH) Law, which expanded access to contraceptives and sex education.

As I document in my recent book, relationships between religious and secular elites shape the politics of religion in the Philippines and elsewhere. While the CBCP opposed the RH Law, the bill was supported by many civil society actors who had been the Church’s allies against the Marcos dictatorship. Those weakened ties help explain not only why the CBCP was unable to defeat the RH Law, but also why it’s had weaker influence on other political issues since.

The gap between the Church and its former allies may be closing. Catholic networks are working closely with human rights advocates in civil society to document killings tied to anti-drug operations, and have joined with similar groups to organize the “Movement Against Tyranny,” which convened public protests on Sept. 21, the 45th anniversary of Marcos’s declaration of martial law in 1972.

But it’s not clear that the Church is influencing public opinion at large. To date, survey evidence does not show any decline in public support for the president, although new data does reveal suspicion of police conduct in the war on drugs. Certainly, the Cardinal of Manila has in the past helped rally public opinion against a once-popular ruler. But Tagle and his colleagues likely know that perhaps the biggest obstacle to their current campaign sits in their pews.