Philippine Sociological Society

FOREWORD TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE: A Religious Society? Advancing the Sociology of

Religion in the Philippines
Author(s): Manuel Victor J. Sapitula and Jayeel S. Cornelio
Source: Philippine Sociological Review, Vol. 62, SPECIAL ISSUE: SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
(2014), pp. 1-9
Published by: Philippine Sociological Society
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FOREWORD TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE

A Religious Society?
Advancing the Sociology of
Religion in the Philippines

Much has been said about the future of religion and for some, the
prospects are not entirely encouraging. At the heart of the controversy is
the secularization thesis, which broadly characterized, predicts the decline
of religion from public and private life (Cornelio 2014b). Although
many sociologists have rejected the secularization thesis, its continuing
salience for others draws from the experience of advanced societies in the
West where church-oriented indicators signal ever-weakening religiosity
(Bruce 20 1 1 ; Norris and Inglehart 2011).
In the Philippines, some observers have begun pointing to recent
trends indicating the possible decline of religiosity. The Social Weather
Stations has documented a declining trend in church attendance among
Filipino adults from 66% in 1991 to 43% in 2013 (Mangahas 2011).
Among Catholics, the decline is arguably more drastic from 64% in 1991
to 37% in 2013. The discursive recurrence of religious decline is also
manifest among commentators and religious individuals. Following a
Luhmannian view, sociologist Randolf David (2013) notes that although
personal faith will not necessarily disappear, "the place of religion in the
scheme of society will become sharply defined and limited" as societies
modernize. For the Jesuit Joel Tabora (2013), precipitating the fallout
among Catholics is their "exasperation" with "the holier-than-thou
discourse, the theological bullying, [and] the magisterial declarations"

Philippine Sociological Review (2014) • Vol. 62 • pp. 1-9 1

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which surfaced as the Reproductive Health Bill was still being deliberated.
His pastoral experience seeing the desire of many Catholics to leave the
Church has led him to believe that it is in trouble.

That religion is in trouble in the Philippines needs to be problematized.

Clearly, the issue has to do more with institutional Catholicism than with
the overall state of religious life in the Philippines. David (2013) notes
that the greatest challenge to the dominance of the Catholic Church
in the Philippines is the missionizing zeal of Evangelical churches.
Marty Macasaet (2009), the president of Don Bosco Technical College,
observes that many Catholic youth are drawn to the communal and highly
experiential modes of spirituality available in other Christian churches.
But because the population is predominantly Catholic, any decline
in institutional Catholic religiosity may be misconstrued as decline in
religiosity itself. For instance, Eladio Dioko's (2009) question on whether
Filipinos are losing their religion is based on his observations that church
attendance has dwindled.

To us, the decline of sacramental religiosity - whether for the Catholic

Church or the population at large - is an inadequate indicator of the state
of religion in the Philippines today. There are other indicators, such as
personal belief in God, in which Filipinos rate very highly. On various
indicators of private belief in God, the Philippines trumps many other
countries: 91.9% of Filipinos believe in a personal God, 93.5% profess
always having believed in God, and 83.6% say that "I know God really
exists and I have no doubts about it" (Smith 2012:7). This is corroborated
by documented transformations of popular religious practices, which
now includes considerable attention to individual needs and aspirations
of devotees (Sapitula 2013).
We also note the emergence of religious innovations or movements
that reinvigorate religious life not just in Catholicism but also other
traditions (Cornelio 2008). Charismatic renewal movements in the
Catholic and Evangelical churches have become noteworthy as religious
spaces for finding personal meaning, with consequences on behavioral
discipline and upward mobility (Miller and Yamamori 2007; Aguilar
Jr. 2006; Wiegele 2005). Pentecostal and Evangelical megachurches,
many of which emerged in the 1980s, are also increasingly influential
in the Philippines because of their spectacular worship services, public

2 Philippine Sociological Review (2014) • Vol. 62 • Special Issue

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engagement, and an increasingly visible role in politics (Bautista 2011;
Lim 2009).
Finally, we suggest that religious organizations have begun
showcasing their success no longer simply in terms of their number of
conversions. In Philippine Catholicism this is apparent with the increasing
attention paid to shrines, which have now become spaces for transmitting
translocal and mediated forms of devotional piety (Sapitula 2014). Also,
constructions of religious sites with grand global appeal such as Iglesia
ni Cristo's Philippine Arena in Bulacan, the El Shaddai's International
House of Prayer in Parañaque City, and Apollo Quiboloy's Tamayong
Prayer Mountain in Davao City demonstrate acts of religious worlding
that recast the Philippines as a center in the advancement of global South
Christianity (Cornelio 2015, 2014a).
These instances suggest that there are other indicators demonstrating
vibrant religiosity in the midst of seemingly declining church
attendance. These forms and manifestations demand closer sociological
investigation. At one level, we agree that it can be difficult to map out
the diversity of religious expressions in the Philippines today. Such task
is a methodological challenge especially if one would proceed beyond
quantitative indicators. We are also aware that defining religiosity in terms
of belief, as is implicit to the statistics just cited, assumes that religions
are necessarily theological or coherent sets of ideas (Asad 1993).
It is then pertinent to take a look at everyday expressions of religion
wherein one can perhaps find not doctrinal unity but practical logics
(McGuire 2008; Orsi 1997). The questions we propose with the rest of
this special issue are thus: Given the statistics above, what does belief
in God mean to Filipinos at this time? In view of statistical decline in
religious attendance, does such belief translate to other concrete religious
expressions? What forms of religious expressions are these? With the
religious innovations taking shape in Philippine society, we believe
these questions contribute toward the advancement of the sociology
of religion, which we believe is an increasingly pressing, timely, and
relevant undertaking.
This special issue proceeds from the interest shown by scholars who
published articles in the Philippine Sociological Review (PSR) in the
course of its sixty years of publication. We also note lively discussions

Foreword 1

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among participants of the 201 3 PSS National Conference on "Church and
State: Dynamic Transitions" held at Mariano Marcos State University
(MMSU) in Batac, llocos Norte. In the task of locating the state of
the sociology of religion in this country, we sifted through the articles
published in the PSR that dealt with any aspect pertaining to religious
beliefs and practices.
We found that studies on ritual engendered the most number of studies,
with twelve published articles. Ritual studies peaked during the 1960's
but declined thereafter, with no new articles published after 1980. There
were also articles published on Islam and Muslims in the Philippines
(particularly in Mindanao), with a total of seven articles published from
1960 to 1973. This trend reflected widespread interest in acquiring new
frames of reference that sought to involve Muslim Mindanao in the
formation of national discourses.

Topics on Church and society and religious movements also received

ample attention, with five and four articles published, respectively. Topics
on Church and society are represented throughout the sixty years of the
PSR, with the earliest article published in 1 958 and the latest one published
in 2012. The articles revolved around the role of religious organizations
(typically Catholic ones) in promoting community welfare and political
participation. The interest on religious movements commenced with
Prospero Covar 's landmark publication in 1960 on the Iglesia Watawat
ng Lahi. Occasional articles on the social function of myths, religious
leadership and religion and disasters were also published throughout the
sixty-year period.
As seen from the discussion, existing studies reflect the salience of
certain topics at particular historical junctures; on the whole, however,
these studies have remained quite fragmentary and sporadic. A close
reading of the articles suggests that scholars did not usually take off from
the works of previous authors, and citation of previous works were quite
low. Furthermore, a survey of articles shows significant time-gaps in
publication: no articles on religion were found in the period from 1974
to 1979, from 1986 to 1991, from 1993 to 2002, and again from 2004 to
2008. Notwithstanding the contributions made by previous scholarship,
we argue that sociological engagement with religion in the Philippines is

4 Philippine Sociological Review (2014) • Vol. 62 • Special Issue

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still at its seminal stage and can still be greatly expanded to cover more
themes and issues.

This special issue includes a broad range of materials that enable

expansive engagements with religion in the Philippines today. We include
an interview with Professor Linda Woodhead from the Department of
Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University, UK. In the few
days that she visited the Philippines to give a keynote address at the 2013
PSS National Conference, she perceived the potential for greater scholarly
engagement with religion in its many forms. Professor Woodhead is herself
engaged in various dialogues with leading ecclesiastical and scholarly
figures in the UK, and she sees a fruitful prospect of carrying out that same
willingness to engage in the Philippine context.
We also publish in full the keynote address read in 2012 by the
late Fr. John J. Carroll, S J (f 2014). Fr. Carroll was President of the
Philippine Sociological Society and one of the pioneer figures in the
sociology of religion in this country, utilizing his training to build
bridges between sociological knowledge and the Catholic Church's
social doctrine. His body of work and social engagements bear the
stamp of his "creative fidelity" to engage social science and religious
vocation as a Jesuit and priest. In the keynote address he reflects about
his dual role as a Catholic priest and a sociologist, highlighting the
challenges as well as opportunities to engage with social issues in a
more nuanced way.
The research articles in the special issue begin with Eleanor R.
Dionisio's Catholic Partisanship in the 2013 Elections: 'Churchifying'
Democracy or Democratizing the Church? The article provides a timely
sociological appraisal of issues surrounding Church-State relations
in the Philippines today. In discussing the engagement of the Catholic
Church in the recent 2013 elections, Dionisio refines Jose Casanova's
(1994) notion of public religions in order to accommodate specificities
of the Philippine experience. One of the highlights of the article is
Dionisio's documentation of various agential interests within the
Church, which reassesses commonly held views about the monolithic
and "uncompromising" disposition of the Catholic Church in political
matters. The article facilitates greater appreciation not only of how the

Foreword 5

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Catholic Church responds to political issues, but also how it understands
its internal complexity as an actor in Philippine public life.
The theme of religion and culture is engaged by Aristotle Dy's
article The Virgin Mary as Mazu or Guanyin: The Syncretic Nature
of Chinese Religion in the Philippines. Using ethnographic methods,
Dy problematizes the nature of syncretism and how it is particularly
manifested in the religious practices of the Filipino-Chinese community.
Particularly noteworthy is the juxtaposition of Guanyin or Mazu in the
Chinese tradition and the Virgin Mary in the Filipino Catholic tradition,
insofar as these figures are quite popular to both traditions. The discussion
of different ways of combining beliefs, material objects and practices
employed by Filipino-Chinese devotees allows for an understanding of
"differential logics" of engagement with religion that do not proceed
from Western notions of exclusivity. Dy's contribution to this special
issue is an invitation for Filipino scholars to reflect on the heterogeneities
of experience on the ground and pluralize theoretical engagements with
religious syncretism in its many forms.
Filmore Calibo and Enrique Oración 's article The Secular Reasons
for Entering the Diocesan Priestly Formation of Young Filipinos
highlights the need to expand the discourse on religious socialization
of clerics (ministers, pastors, or priests) and the changing character of
religious authority in the Philippines today. Whereas the discussion of
religious motives of aspirants is already quite established in the literature,
Calibo and Oración dedicate their efforts toward understanding secular
reasons that equally inform one's decision to continue or discontinue
seminary formation. Using data from Catholic seminarians in the Visayas,
they argue that motivators aligned with social prestige and possibilities
of upward mobility, while distinct from strictly religious motivators, are
nevertheless crucial in the candidate's formation experience. The article
sidesteps oppositional treatments of secular and religious aspirations in
favor of a holistic accounting of vocation narratives that include both
material and spiritual considerations.
José Edgardo Gomez and Marie Stephanie Gilles' article, Worship
and Urban Structure in Unconventional Locations: The Spatial Features
of Religious Group Diversity in Metro Manila, fill a significant gap in

6 Philippine Sociological Review (2014) • Vol. 62 • Special Issue

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the literature on religion and space. The article maps different types
of religious buildings and structures in the Manila metropolis and the
ways in which these structures blend in their environment. Drawing
from insights in geography, urban sociology, and urban planning,
Gomez and Gilles distill different ways in which religious structures
are configured into economic, environmental, and political realities
of urban environments. Furthermore, they demonstrate the capability
of religious structures in fostering transcendent experiences for
worshipers, which shows how the sacred is understood and experienced
in spatial terms.
We refer to our earlier point that the study of religion is "increasingly
pressing, timely, and relevant undertaking" at this time in Philippine
history and go back to the questions we raised with regard to the nature,
forms, and implication of religious belief and practice for modern
Filipinos. We recognize that much still needs to be written with regard
to various aspects and dimensions of religious life in the context of a
diversifying and pluralizing Philippines. The articles in this special
issue queried along these lines and have pushed the frontiers of what we
know and what we can further imagine. Following their lead, we hope
to encourage more scholars to utilize their "sociological imagination"
(Mills 1959) in engaging the plethora of emerging beliefs, practices,
organizations, and institutions in the country today.

Manuel Victor J. Sapitula and Jayeel S. Cornelio

Special Issue Editors

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Foreword 9

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