RONIE BOTONA
RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY I
Professor: Fr. Dave Capucao

“A CRITICAL ASSESMENT OF RELIGION TODAY IN THE PHILIPPINES: REALITY AND CHALLENGES; WEAKNESSES AND OPPURTUNITIES”

Religion is humanity’s way to be in connection with the divine. It can be traced centuries ago. In the Philippines, religion existed already during pre-colonialization. However it was only during the colonialization period that religion becomes a power to reckon and established its significance to the Filipino people regularly. Today our country has been open to any religious practices. In a recent statistics Roman Catholic is the most numbered among other religious practices. More than eighty percent of the population are Catholics, this is because it is the religion brought by the Spanish colonialists who stays in the country for over three hundred years. Aside from other Christian denominations other religions also were able to establish their presence in the country. There are Muslims, Buddhist, Jews and many others to mention, and this is because of the freedom given with regards to religious practices. Looking upon the past and even until now, religion has always been the subject of many criticisms. The Muslims in the south were considered subversive due to their demands that were not meet by the government, resulting to war and bloodshed. This has been a perennial problem for many years. Although this was more on the political aspect but religion plays a vital part. Muslims are very loyal to their teachings even to the point of committing suicide for the sake of their cause. Another issue that clouded religion in the country is its participation in politics. Politicians befriended and even gave money and other incentives to religious leaders in order for them to gain votes from the member of the particular religion. Religious leaders were already bribed by traditional