Irreligion in the Philippines

Irreligion in the Philippines is particularly virtually non-existent among Filipinos (see Religion in the Philippines), with Catholic Christianity being the dominant faith.[1] Less than 0.1% of Filipinos lack a religious affiliation.[2] It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists or agnostics in the Philippines as they are not officially counted in the census of the country, although the National Statistics Office (NSO) in 2010 gathered that 73,248 Filipinos have no religious affiliation or have answered "none". Since 2011, the non-religious increasingly organized themselves, especially among the youth in the country.[3] There is a stigma attached to being an atheist in the Philippines, and this necessitates many Filipino atheists to communicate with each other via the Internet, for example via the Philippine Atheism, Agnosticism and Secularism, Inc. formerly known as Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society.[4]

Philippine religious distribution

According to the 2000 census, the religious distribution of the country's population was as follows:[5]

Religion in the Philippines, 2000 Census[5]
Religion			percentage
Roman Catholic			80.9%
Aglipayan			2%
Islam			5%
Evangelicalism			2.8%
Iglesia ni Cristo			2.3%
Other Christian			4.5%
Other			1.8%
Unspecified			0.6%
None			0.1%

References

1. De Leon, Cate (2012-12-22). "How to be an atheist in the Philippines". The Philippine Star. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
2. French, Michael (5 March 2017). "The New Atheists of the Philippines". The Atlantic.
3. Webadmin (2012-04-24). "Atheists Searching For Their Place in Heavily Catholic Philippines". The Jakarta Globe. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
4. "Pinoy atheists and agnostics to have 'coming out' event". ABS-CBN News. 2011-03-19. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
5. "The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on 2010-01-11. Retrieved 2016-03-07.