page_title: Religion in the Philippines
section_title: Christianity
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in the Philippines / Dominant religions / Christianity
caption_attribution_description: Tuguegarao Cathedral This is a photo of a cultural heritage property in the Philippines with ID PH-02-0009
context_page_description: Religion in the Philippines is marked by a majority of people being adherents of the Christian faith. At least 92% of the population is Christian; about 81% belong to the Catholic Church while about 11% belong to Protestantism, Orthodoxy, Restorationist and Independent Catholicism and other denominations such as Iglesia Filipina Independiente, Iglesia ni Cristo, Seventh-day Adventist Church, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Members Church of God International and Evangelicals. Officially, the Philippines is a secular nation, with the Constitution guaranteeing separation of church and state, and requiring the government to respect all religious beliefs equally.
  According to national religious surveys, about 5.6% of the population of the Philippines is Muslim, making Islam the second largest religion in the country. However, A 2012 estimate by the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos stated that there were 10.7 million Muslims, or approximately 11 percent of the total population. The majority of Muslims live in parts of Mindanao, Palawan, and the Sulu Archipelago – an area known as Bangsamoro or the Moro region.
context_section_description: Christianity arrived in the Philippines with the landing of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain, who was then Prince of Girona and of Asturias under his father, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor who, as Charles I, was also King of Spain. Missionary activity during the country's colonial rule by Spain and the United States led the transformation of the Philippines into the first and then, along with East Timor, one of two predominantly Catholic nations in East Asia, with approximately 92.5% of the population belonging to the Christian faith.
caption: St Peter's Metropolitan Cathedral in Tuguegarao
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