If you do not know, Philippines is heavily Catholic. 85 million individuals are Catholics in The Philippines and that makes up 78.8% of the country. A lot of the laws and beliefs in the country are influenced by the Catholic church. Even matters like divorce and LGBT rights are decided with the influence of the religion.
The reason why religion is getting a voice on many issues is that the politicians do not want to anger the hierarchy within the church because they are going to lose support at election time. The Roman Catholic Church still has an impact on the voting populace.
There is a law that separates state and religion. Unfortunately, on pressing issues, the religions are voicing their concern or want to be relevant to the problem.
other religions with huge following even if they are not catholic ends up speaking on this matter and politicians ask for their support so maybe yes there’s still some political power going on when talking about gambling