Most religious, most prayerful
As more and more global survey data on religion accumulate, the clearer it seems that religiosity in the Philippines should be dated in millennia, or far, far longer than the 500 years since the introduction of Christianity from Spain in 1521.
This is based on the latest religion module of the International Social Survey Program (www.issp.org), a network founded in 1984, where Social Weather Stations has represented the Philippines since 1990, as the first ISSP member from the developing world. ISSP now has 42 members; it is self-financed and democratically organized, with one-country-one-vote in choice of topic and design questions. Every survey uses a national probability sample of 1,000-1,500 adults.
The very first ISSP survey done by SWS was on religion, in 1991. The religion topic was repeated in 1998, 2008, and 2018, so the modules are known as Religion I, II, III, and IV, respectively. In each replication, two-thirds of the previous questionnaire is kept for the sake of time analysis, and one-third is new.
ISSP’s Religion IV was released for 33 countries in December 2020. The full series of four rounds is available for 12 countries: Austria, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Russia, Slovenia, and the United States. Other ISSP countries in the new release are Bulgaria, Chile, Taiwan, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and Turkey; a few more are still forthcoming, since fielding time is not uniform.
The Philippines stood out in religiosity from Religion I, and still stands out at present, despite the greater religious diversity in Religion IV. This is not a contest, but only what is revealed as the global picture widens. Space being short, I will compare the Philippines only with Spain, the US, Japan, and Turkey, along a few items. Note the relatively low numbers of Spain, the historical origin of Philippine Christianity. Filipinos are closer to Americans than to Spaniards in terms of religiosity, and in some respects are closer yet to the Islamic Turks.
Self-described religiosity. In Religion IV, the percentages considering themselves as extremely/very/somewhat religious are: Philippines 89, Turkey 75, US 67, Spain 35, and Japan 29. The 33-country or “world” average is 46; the Philippines is the largest of all. This is a symmetric 7-point scale, with neither religious nor non-religious in the middle (Philippines 6, world 20), and somewhat/very/extremely non-religious on the other end (Philippines 5, world 34).
Frequency of prayer. The percentages that pray several times a week/once a day/several times a day are: Philippines 83, US 64, Turkey 43, Spain 25, and Japan 18. The 33-country average is 28; the Philippines is the largest of all. Other categories, with Philippine numbers in parentheses, are: “Never” (0.5), “Less than once a year” (1), “About once or twice a year” (0.9), “Several times a year” (0.5), “About once a month” (2.2), “2-3 times a month” (0.9), “Nearly every week” (3.9), “Every week” (7.4).
Belief in God. The percentages that say, “I know that God really exists and I have no doubts about it,” are: Turkey 85, Philippines 78, US 55, Spain 31, and Japan 3. The 33-country average is 34; Georgia (Eastern Orthodox Christian) is the largest, at 86, before Turkey and the Philippines. Other pre-listed answers, with Philippine numbers, are: “I don’t believe in God” (1), “I don’t know whether there is a God and I don’t believe there is any way to find out” (3), “I don’t believe in a personal God, but in a higher power of some kind” (3), “I find myself believing in God some of the time, but not at others” (5), and “While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in God” (10).
Belief in religious miracles. I include this only on a hunch of its possible relevance to public attitudes about the future of the pandemic. The percentages saying they definitely/probably believe in religious miracles are: Turkey 83, US 77, Philippines 75, Spain 34, and Japan 22; the 33-country average is 50.
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Contact: [email protected]. For the scientific community, documented ISSP data are accessible free of charge via the data catalogue of the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS): https://dbk.gesis.org/dbksearch/sdesc2.asp?no=7570&db=e&doi=10.4232/1.13441.
