MANILA (Updated) -- Catholic groups launched a campaign Monday to try to muster millions of votes for senatorial candidates who opposed the Reproductive Health law passed last year, and proved the church remains a force to be reckoned with in Asia's largest Catholic nation.
Catholic leader Mike Velarde said his El Shaddai group and dozens of other lay organizations are joining together to campaign in the May 13 midterm elections for pro-church candidates who could help battle possible legislation to legalize same-sex marriage, divorce and abortion.
"I believe we can muster enough vote to make a difference this coming elections," said Velarde, spokesman of the church-based White Vote Movement.
The groups could deliver up to six million votes in about 3,000 Catholic communities across the country, with each projected to have 2,000 voters, enough to ensure the electoral victory of pro-church candidates who are vying for 12 of 24 Senate seats in next month's elections, according to Velarde.
The new movement wants to prove that the influential Catholic church's clout remains formidable, he said.
"The Catholic church is not dead," Velarde told a news conference. "It is alive; it has power."
Velarde said the groups will announce on April 13 the first batch of candidates they will support in the May 13 midterm elections. The second batch will be announced in the coming weeks, he added.
The El Shaddai leader said they are looking to support a maximum of 10 pro-church senatorial candidates.
"I cannot reveal these candidates to you now because we are still in the process of examining their background, their track record, their personality, their commitments about life and family," Velarde said.
The Responsible Parenthood Law, which would provide state funding for contraceptives, was passed by lawmakers late last year despite the dominant Catholic church's staunch opposition.
The Supreme Court has delayed the law's implementation until June to give proponents and petitioners who questioned its legality a chance to argue their cases before the high tribunal.
Catholic leaders consider the law an attack on the church's core values and say it promotes promiscuity and fosters abortion. The government said the law would help the poor with family planning and provide for maternal health care.
The Philippines has a population of 94 million and one of Asia's highest birth rates. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unwanted, according to the UN Population Fund, and a third of those end up aborted in back-alley clinics.
The law has pitted the Catholic church against popular President Benigno Aquino III and his followers who backed the legislation. Its passage has fostered perceptions that the church's moral and political authority has waned in the country over the decades.
Aquino signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 quietly and without customary handshakes and photographs last December to avoid controversy. (AP/HDT/Sunnex)