10 - Intervening with Politics

Influence is a powerful tool to affect other people, whether in a good or bad way. Probably, influential leaders are the most effective 'influencer'. These people can be found everywhere in the society or even  in a community. They can also be found in churches.

Church leaders are also influential leaders. They can easily affect their congregation through the weekly masses or service. Here, in the Philippines, where majority of the population are said to be religious, the Catholic Church officials are probably considered as influential person. They speak not only in the masses but, some, also speaks in the national television. Because of this, they also, probably, have an effect on the government and politics.

Looking into this subject, I found an article about one of the latest and the most debated bill in the Philippines. The RH Bill. It is a news article entitled, “RH bill tests Church's political influence: Miriam”, which is, perhaps, written by the ABS-CBN news team.

The article was about an interview with Sen. Miriam Santiago. She challenges the other senators about their votes being influenced by the Catholic church. The senator points out that some senator will probably vote in favor of the Church, because of fear for their reputations, especially with the upcoming elections.

The author states:

“Catholic bishops have been known to campaign against politicians who support bills that are against the Catholic Church's teaching.” (ABS-CBN News, 2012)

In this case, we can see that the Catholic church holds an influence in the politics. Probably, some politician will be afraid if the Catholic church would campaign against them. This will lose their chance of winning in the upcoming election because the majority of the Filipinos are Catholics.

As you can see, even if the Church does not intend to campaign against politicians, there's still the possibility for people to based their election votes from their beliefs, which comes from religion. Simply by going against the church beliefs, the politician is putting his reputation at risk.

By that, I can infer that beliefs taught by religion can really affect an individuals decision-making.