Anti-Blasphemy provision on new House bill causes alarm among Filipino humanists

By Joshua Villalobos
HAPI Scholar | HAPI-Bacolod Member

This past January, a revised version of House Bill 10569 or the Magna Carta on Religious Freedom Act was approved by the House of Representatives of the Philippines, raising concerns anew among humanists and atheists in the country for its inclusion of an “anti-blasphemy” provision.

Javan Lev Poblador, HAPI Chief Executive Officer, denounced Section 19-d, one of the prohibited acts, for its unjust penalization of religious criticism.

Section 19-d of the new bill makes it unlawful for any person to “defame, harass, humiliate or offend a person by reason of one’s religious belief or the practice of such belief.”

“An individual can pay a hefty price by just offending a person by reason of one’s religion or belief [under the Prohibited Acts (Section 19)],” Poblador said. “‘Blasphemy’ laws in their nature have been used in many other countries to silence or prohibit free expression when it comes to offering criticism, satire, or even questioning.”

Poblador added that this provision is inconsistent with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights as it violates the right to freedom of expression.

He called on legislators to review the bill and include the non-religious community in the consultations and hearings to guarantee that all things are considered before the bill is passed into law.

“As our elected leaders, they must exhibit fairness to all, both the non-religious and religious alike, and ensure that our laws are compatible with international law,” Poblador said.

The latest version of the bill, submitted by the House Committee on Human Rights, notably also added ‘atheists’ in the definition of terms, describing it as “the denial of the existence of personal God or deity, and shall be treated as a form of religion for the purpose of entitlement to the protection of freedom of religion and conscience.”

Poblador commended the new change. “Although we do not refer to atheism as [the] ‘denial of the existence of a personal God or deity,’ it at least gives the nonreligious an equal footing with the rest of the religious groups on this bill,” he said.

Humanist and atheist groups in the Philippines previously sounded the alarm last May 2021 regarding certain provisions of the bill – specifically, the non-inclusion of atheists and non-believers in the actual text and in the process of the bill’s creation.

In a statement signed by three major humanist organizations in the Philippines including Humanist Alliance Philippines, International (HAPI), they said that the bill “not only infringes the rights of secular, non-religious Filipinos, it also holds serious repercussions for matters of free speech, religious privilege, and fair taxation in the Philippines.” They were criticizing the old version of the bill that did not include atheists in its text thus ignoring their existence and presence in the country.

“On the early and first versions of the bill, they included a proposal that prohibits same-sex marriage, a clear manifestation of the true intention of the bill that this was not meant to protect the rights of every Filipino,” they added.

In addition, the groups were also wary that some of the “rights” provided in the bill might be prone to abuse and used to defend hate speech.

The Magna Carta on Religious Freedom Act, co-authored by religious leader and politician Rep. Bro. Eddie Villanueva (among others), was among a number of bills recently passed in the third and final reading by the House of Representatives. As per a press release of the lower congressional chamber, it “aims to ensure that no act of the government or any of its instrumentalities, officers or employees shall burden, curtail, impinge or encroach on the person’s right to exercise one’s religious belief, freedom, and liberty of conscience.”

Though the bill has already passed in the lower house, it still needs to undergo three readings in the higher chamber (Senate) and be signed by the President before it could be enacted as a law.