Religious Freedom in the Philippines: From Legalities to Lived Experience

Religious freedom has been a key facet of its various Constitutions since the day the Philippines became Asia's first democratic republic in 1899. The immediate religious context of the Philippines, however, renders these provisions difficult to uphold consistently. The Catholic Church remains influential to politics and policy formulation, and at the same time the religious landscape is increasingly diverse due to immigration. Past academic discussion on religious freedom in the Philippines has been mainly among legal scholars. In the future greater attention should be focused on the subjective and everyday experience of religious freedom.