32 Asia The EconomistFebruary 15th 2020
2 worries that an erosion of traditional val-
ues is under way. The church has struggled
to respond to the wild popularity of Presi-
dent Rodrigo Duterte, who has called God
“stupid”, the Pope “a son of a whore” and
says that a priest molested him as a boy.
The Catholic hierarchy has opposed Mr Du-
terte’s signature policy, a war on drugs that
involves cops shooting thousands of sus-
pected dealers, to little avail.
But Catholics’ declining influence over
politics has been offset by the growing im-
portance of various Protestant sects. Al-
though only about 10% of Filipinos, or
roughly 10m people, describe themselves
as Protestants or evangelicals, their rela-
tive fervour makes them a political lobby to
be reckoned with. They tend to espouse a
literal interpretation of the Bible and so are
fiercely opposed to divorce, same-sex mar-
riage and abortion, says Jayeel Serrano Cor-
nelio of Ateneo de Manila University.
The most influential movements,
which took hold in the late 1970s and 1980s,
include Jesus Is Lord, perhaps the country’s
largest evangelical movement, as well as
the megachurches Victory Christian Fel-
lowship and Christ’s Commission Fellow-
ship. Iglesia Ni Cristo, an indigenous
Christian movement founded more than a
century ago, also has around 2m adherents
in the Philippines. It owns the biggest in-
door arena in the world, located near Ma-
nila, where 55,000 people can worship at
the same time.
Whereas Catholic prelates have become
more reluctant to hector politicians, evan-
gelicals often mix religion and politics
without compunction. Eddie Villanueva,
for example, a deputy speaker of the House
of Representatives, is also a prominent
television evangelist and the founder of Je-
sus Is Lord. Manny Pacquiao, who parlayed
a career as a boxer into a seat in the Senate,
is famous for his zealotry. He has called
people in same-sex relationships “worse
than animals”.
The nature of the Philippine political
system allows such conservatives to thwart
liberal reforms fairly easily. Parties are
weak, which makes it difficult to build mo-
mentum for controversial causes. And the
Senate, which must approve all bills before
they become law, presents an especially
daunting obstacle. Its 24 members are
elected in brutally competitive elections
from a single, nationwide constituency.
Mobilising votes across a country of 106m
people is a huge undertaking, making it
unwise for candidates to alienate any big,
influential group. Small wonder that the
opening of a museum dedicated to Iglesia
Ni Cristo in September drew no fewer than
half the country’s senators. Even the body’s
wealthiest member, Cynthia Villar, decid-
ed she could not miss it.
Fierce religious opposition helped to
delay by 13 years the passage of the law al-lowing the government to distribute con-
traceptives. Even after it passed, Congress
refused to fund it adequately, leaving many
poor Filipinos without access to modern
birth control. The Catholic church, mean-
while, persuaded the courts to issue an or-
der to restrict the sorts of contraception
that could be provided under the law, on
the grounds that some methods were tan-
tamount to abortion.
The ongoing battle bodes ill for the bill
to legalise divorce that is currently underconsideration in Congress. Mr Duterte’s
own marriage was annulled, after a court
found he was so prone to affairs that his
wife of 27 years had only been a nominal
one. Yet so strong is the religious opposi-
tion to the bill that not even Mr Duterte
supports it. Nonetheless, argues Carlos
Conde of Human Rights Watch, a pressure
group, the continuing attempts to intro-
duce liberal bills despite their small
chances of success are an encouraging sign
in themselves. 7S
incehebecamepresidentin2016,
Rodrigo Duterte has talked loudly and
often about his disdain for America,
which is a former colonial power in the
Philippines. But never before have his
grievances translated into action. On
February 11th he cancelled the Visiting
Forces Agreement (vfa), a military pact
between the two countries that enabled
American troops to participate in joint
exercises in the Philippines. The Ameri-
can embassy in Manila declared the
decision “a serious step with significant
implications for the us-Philippines
alliance”.
It also has implications for the re-
gion’s security. The vfaadds practical
weight to the two countries’ mutual
defence pact, which remains in force.
Scrapping it might encourage adventur-
ism from South-East Asia’s jihadists
(which worries Mr Duterte) and China
(which may not). In 2017, when fighters
allied to Islamic State captured the centre
of the southern city of Marawi, Philip-pineforcesexpelledthemwiththe help
of intelligence gathered by American
soldiers. By the same token, Philippine
and American forces have conducted
joint exercises in the South China Sea,
where China’s expansive claims overlap
with the Philippines’. The cancellation of
the vfaimperils such co-operation.
“It’s about time we rely on our own
resources,” explained Salvador Panelo,
the president’s spokesman. “We have to
strengthen our own capability as a coun-
try relative to the defence of our land.”
But there is another explanation: Senator
Ronald dela Rosa, a former national
police chief who led Mr Duterte’s bloody
war on drugs, was recently barred from
visiting America. Mr Duterte had threat-
ened to cancel the vfain retaliation. In
January he also banned members of his
cabinet from travelling to America.
Whether Mr Duterte really intends a
strategic pivot to China, or is simply
unpredictably irascible, remains as
opaque as ever.A treatyfora visa
Duterte v AmericaMANILA
In a fit of pique, the president tears up a defence pact with AmericaJoint exercises? Duterte doesn’t like the sound of that