Miriam: Catholic vote is a myth

Published November 26, 2012 4:01pm

Nothing but myth. On Monday, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said the so-called Catholic vote is all but fiction amid the call of a Catholic bishop urging the faithful to reject candidates who are not following the Church's teachings.

“In the past, the Catholic Church campaigned against Sen. Juan Flavier because as Health secretary, he freely distributed condoms. But Flavier won the elections. Thus, the so-called Catholic vote is a political myth,” Santiago said in a press statement. Santiago is one of the proponents of the controversial RH bill pending at the Senate.

Earlier, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, former vice chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines – Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, urged faithful to use the “Catholic vote” to choose pro-life candidates in the May 2013 polls.

“Kaya kapag mayroong kandidato na hindi sumusunod sa utos ng Diyos, dapat tanggihan yung mga 'yun. At kailangan na magkaroon ngayon ng Catholic vote. Dapat ipakita natin ang pagiging tunay na Katoliko. Marami diyan ay mga pekeng Katoliko, yun ang naghahari sa atin," Arguelles said in a radio interview. What surveys say But citing recent survey results, Santiago said that big majority of Filipinos are pro-RH.

In November 2010, Pulse Asia released a survey showing that:

69 percent of respondents agree with the RH bill,
7 percent opposed the bill; while
24 percent could not say if they agree or disagree with the bill.

Measuring the people's awareness about the bill, Pulse Asia said eight out of 10 Filipinos (80 percent) knew about the RH Bill currently pending in Congress. In Metro Manila, 90 percent of the respondents were aware of the bill.

On the other hand, a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey released in February 2010 showed that Filipinos who would vote for pro-RH bill candidates outnumber those who will vote for candidates who are opposed to the measure.

The survey results showed that 38 percent of the 2,100 respondents (or 798 people) would vote for candidates favoring House Bill No. 5043 or the Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008.

In contrast, only 6 percent of the total respondents said they would vote for aspirants who oppose the measure. Twenty percent of the respondents, meanwhile, said a candidate’s stand on the RH bill will have no effect on their votes. Separation of Church and State

Santiago likewise said that the threat by some Catholic clerics to punish Congress members who vote for the RH bill constitutes “borderline violation of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.”

She said the separation principle includes what is called the establishment clause, as well as the free exercise clause. “The general guide is that the government should observe neutrality,” she said.

The senator said that of all the major churches in the Philippines, only the Catholic Church is against RH. The rest are pro-RH, namely, Iglesia ni Cristo, Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood, and the Assembly of Darul-Iftah of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. — Amita Legaspi/RSJ, GMA News

Tags: miriamdefensorsantiago, eleksyon2013, rhbill, repdroductivehealth,