ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the rise of conservative reformism in the Philippine Catholic Church under the presidency of Aquino and identifies the limits of its appeal among Filipino Catholics beginning in the early 1990s. It talks about the historical overview of church and state relations in the twentieth-century Philippines. The United States colonized the Philippines at the close of the nineteenth century and laid the foundations of Philippine democracy and post-Spanish-era Catholicism. The chapter examines the way in which the post Marcos, post Cold War climate has been conducive not only to a visible role for the Catholic Church in politics, but also to a host of new religious groups as well: Protestant fundamentalists, charismatic Catholics, and evangelicals of various persuasions. While the Christian groups are prepared to invoke the Bible and see divine sanction in their pursuit of good governance and poverty reduction, it is by no means a given that the type of government they support is democratic.