Denominational Differences and Ecologies of Drug War Violence

This chapter completes the analysis of community protection in the Philippines in two stages. First, a series of focused qualitative comparisons with non-Catholic denominations broadens the attention to other sectors of the Philippine religious landscape such as the Iglesia Ni Cristo, evangelical communities, and denominations of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines such as the United Methodist Church in the Philippines. While the Catholic Church possesses a blend of commitment and capacity that facilitates Drug War intervention, these other traditions offer differing configurations of these variables that, the authors show, shape their responses to the Drug War, which range from narrow self-preservation to internationally oriented protective efforts to, in some cases, religious endorsement of Drug War violence. Second, the chapter turns to an innovative dataset mapping Drug War violence to evaluate a key quantitative implication of the argument: that, all else being equal, neighborhoods with a Catholic church will feature fewer Drug War killings than those without. This community protection does not extend to infrastructure from other religious traditions.