THE share of Catholics in the country fell to 78.8 percent in 2020, according to the latest data from the Census of Population and Housing released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Data showed that in 2015, Catholics comprised 79.5 percent of the population. This is 0.7 percentage points higher than in 2020.
The same data on religious affiliations also showed the share of Iglesia ni Cristo members has also declined to 2.6 percent from 2.7 percent in 2015. However, the share of Muslims in the population increased to 6.4 percent in 2020 from 6 percent in 2015.
Three religions—Roman Catholicism with 85.645 million members; Islam, 6.98 million; and Iglesia ni Cristo, 2.8 million‚were considered as the top religious affiliations in the Philippines in 2020.
Other religious affiliations such as Seventh Day Adventist and Aglipay accounted for 0.8 percent of the population; Iglesia Filipina Independiente accounted for 0.6 percent of the total; and Bible Baptist Church had a share of 0.5 percent.
The data also showed that 8.954 million Filipinos or 8.2 percent of the population belong to other religious affiliations. Further, 43,931 Filipinos do not have any religious affiliations.
The regions
Of the 17 regions, Region V – Bicol Region posted the highest proportion of Roman Catholics, comprising 93.5 percent of its household population.
It may be noted that three of the top 5 provinces with at least 90 percent of their population being Catholic, are found in the Bicol region.
These provinces are led by Albay with a total household population of 1.37 million; 96.2 percent or 1.32 million of these households are Catholic, making the province the most Catholic of all provinces nationwide.
This is followed by Catanduanes, another province in Bicol. While it only has 270,775 households, 95.6 percent or 258,818 of them are Roman Catholic.
The third Bicol province is Sorsogon, where 94 percent or 3.139 million of household population is Catholic. Sorsogon is ranked 5th nationwide in terms of having more than 90 percent of its households being Catholic.
Other regions with high concentrations of Catholics were Region VIII-Eastern Visayas with 92.3 percent, and Region VII – Central Visayas with 90.5 percent.
Except for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which posted the lowest proportion of Roman Catholics at 5.3 percent, the proportion of Roman Catholics in the rest of the regions exceeded 50 percent- ranging from 54.1 percent in Region XII – Soccsksargen to 89.2 percent in Region IV-A-Calabarzon.
Islam is the most predominant religion in BARMM, accounting for 4.49 million persons or 90.9 percent of the 4.94-million household population in the region in 2020.
It was followed by Region IX-Zamboanga Peninsula with 18.2 percent, Soccsksargen with 15.8 percent; Region X-Northern Mindanao with 8.5 percent; and Region XI-Davao Region and Mimaropa Region with 3.5 percent each.
Meanwhile, Region XIII-Caraga, which is also in Mindanao, registered a proportion of Islam of only 0.5 percent. The rest of the regions posted proportions ranging from 0.1 percent each in Bicol and Region VI-Western Visayas to 1.3 percent in the NCR.
Of all the provinces, PSA said Tawi-Tawi registered the highest proportion of the household population who reported Islam as their religion, with 426,403 persons or 97.2 percent of the 438,545 household population in the province.
All the other provinces in BARMM registered proportions higher than 89 percent, namely: Interim province in BARMM with 96.3 percent; Sulu with 95.2 percent; Lanao del Sur with 94.7 percent; Basilan with 89.9 percent, and Maguindanao with 83.5 percent.