UP Law Center Institute for the Administration of Justice holds forum on on religious freedom in the secular state

Legal experts weigh in on religious freedom in the secular state

Co-organized by the UP Law Center Institute for the Administration of Justice, the forum “Religious Freedoms and the Secular State” gathered legal experts to help the Philippine legal system grapple with the mandates of both religious freedom and state secularization amid religious pluralism in the country. The event was held in cooperation with Brigham Young University Law School – International Center for Law and Religion Studies, the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, and the Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy.

Balancing insights from inside and outside the country, the roster of speakers included Judge Raul C. Pangalangan from the International Criminal Court, Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, Prof. W. Cole Durham, Jr. of BYU Law, Prof. Zachary Calo from Valparaiso University;0 Deans Jose Manuel Diokno (De la Salle University), Serafin V. Cuevas, Jr (New Era University), and Ma. Soledad Deriquito-Mawis (Lyceum of the Philippines University); IAJ director Prof. Patricia R.P. Salvador Daway, and former Solicitor General of the Philippines Prof. Florin T. Hilbay.

The forum emphasized how the secularity of the state needed to be distinguished as a “freedom of religion” from secularism’s “freedom from religion,” with the aim to realize a framework wherein people of deep differences could harmoniously co-exist.

For further details, the full forum report by the UP MPRO may be accessed through this link: https://www.up.edu.ph/index.php/legal-experts-weigh-in-on-religious-freedom-in-the-secular-state/