MANILA — This is the Philippines, not Vatican City. And yet here we are, in 2016, the only country in the world other than the Holy See that still outlaws divorce.

Although our Constitution formally guarantees the separation of church and state, the Catholic establishment here wields considerable influence in politics, commenting on specific policies or helping select candidates for office. The Church has long opposed what it calls the “D.E.A.T.H.” bills — laws proposing to allow divorce, euthanasia, abortion, total population control and homosexual marriage — calling them “anti-family and anti-life.”

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