Religion and Politics

"What had happen to the Philippine Roman 

Catholic Church nowadays?"

The concept came up to me when my social science professor asked this question to herself in front of the class. The truth suddenly hit me. I just then realized that my professor was right about it. The question about how religion played a great role in politics is an interesting topic to ponder on.

Long before during the time of Spanish Colonization, Christianity was already used to manipulate the native Filipinos. Since Filipinos are naturally known as god-fearing people, they submitted theirselves to adapt the religion imposed by the Spanish friars. Spain took advantage of this and later used Christianity as a tool to get ahold of the political system in our country including the control of Philippines’ abundant wealth which includes resources and manpower. From then on rise corruption, like a disease it spreads to the veins of the system and became rampant as we forward to the present.

            Even today, the same scheme was used by some politicians. In the present Philippine setting, the participation of Church in politics is indeed evident. Like what had happened to the previous national election. Many religious groups gave block votes to their chosen candidates. Once they’ll be able to choose, full support is given and large percentage of votes is assured. Well, I’m not really against this. For me, it’s some kind of a strategy. Actually when it comes to this political thingy, my knowledge is not that broad and reliable. Now, what I’m trying to stress out is that the members of the religious groups have no choice but to obey what was instructed to them by their leaders. Now here comes the violation of human rights. The freedom of an individual to choose who he wanted to vote is violated. They were like mere puppets receiving checklists of candidates that the group supported.

            Some of my neighbors were members of a certain religious group. When my other neighbor asked them who will they vote, they just showed their lists. Some would say that it’s against their will, others would say that there’s nothing they can do about it. So, where’s freedom now? The involvement of money is also questionable. I’m not kinda sure about this but I overheard the grown-ups talking about benefits. Incentives are given to the members who followed as what was instructed to them and also the leaders of the group received benefits too. It reminded me of what my accounting teacher said when I was still in high school. “If you want to get rich, you enter politics or form your own religious group. In that way, you’ll never go hungry.” So, was vote buying really present? I do believe it is but I don’t have any real first hand information to prove it. What I do know is that the act of buying votes is absolutely unlawful. 

The role of the Church is limited only to its main purpose in the society and it should not interfere, or be a part in any means of carrying out political activities in the government. Vice versa, the government’s major responsibility is to serve its constituents and to make sure that everyone is served or is able to avail the service.