Catholic clergy in the Philippines are urging fellow Catholics to voice their disapproval of a bill pending in the country's Congress that would legalize divorce.

If passed, Vatican City would be the last remaining country where divorce is illegal.

The Philippine legislature revived the bill, which had long been in congressional files but never enacted, just days after voters from largely Catholic Malta approved a referendum to legalize divorce May 29.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines repeated its determination to protect marriage in the island nation after the Maltese vote.

Father Jerry Oblepias, director of the Family Life Ministry in the San Pablo Diocese, told the bishops' news service that "divorce remains to be part of the death culture that seeks to destroy the family.

Once the family is destroyed, degradation of values is surely at the doorstep."