It is likely that there was some Protestant activity in the Philippines before 1898, such as during the
British occupation of Manila, but there were no churches or missions established. One alleged early Filipino Protestant was Paulino Zamora, father of
Methodist bishop
Nicolás Zamora. Some consider Paulino to be the first Protestant in the Philippines. At the time of the
Philippine Revolution, Nicolas Zamora was already preaching the gospel, making him one of the earliest Protestant ministers in the Philippines, even before the arrival of American missionaries. Protestantism began to seriously develop in the Philippines after the
Spanish–American War when the United States acquired the Philippines from the Spanish with the
1898 Treaty of Paris. During
American colonial period, the
Catholic Church was disestablished as the
state religion, giving Protestant missionaries more opportunities to enter the islands. In addition, there was a backlash against the Hispanic Catholicism and a greater acceptance of Protestantism represented by the Americans. The dominance of the Catholic Church in all aspects of life in Spanish Philippines and Protestant
anti-Catholic animosity were prominent reasons for the start of Protestant missionary activity. In 1901 the
Evangelical Union was established in the Philippines to co-ordinate activities amongst the Protestant denominations and lay the foundations for an indigenous religious movement. The first Protestant service during this era was on Sunday, August 28, 1898. Chaplain
George Stull, a member of The
Methodist Episcopal Church, came with the occupying forces. Although his primary duty was to minister to the soldiers, he recorded in his diary that that first service, held in an old Spanish dungeon facing
Manila Bay, was attended not only by his own men but by some Filipinos as well. He commented on this service: "That the power of God will use this day to make a good Catholic better, any weak American stronger, any backslider ashamed, and the gloomy old dungeon the beginning of wonderful things in these Islands, is my prayer."
The Comity Agreement (1898–1941) , the first Baptist Church in the Philippines and second Protestant church in the Philippines (first outside Manila), after the
Central United Methodist Church in
Laoag After the defeat of the Spanish in the
Battle of Manila Bay by the
United States Navy's
Asiatic Squadron, Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist leaders met in 1898 in
New York to discuss how to bring Protestantism to the Philippines. The result was a comity agreement that divided the Philippines into missionary areas by denomination to avoid future conflicts among themselves and their converts. Only one Protestant denomination would be in each area. The meeting was followed by another gathering in 1901 by the early missionaries in Manila to further discuss the comity agreement with three specific major agenda items: •
"to organize the Evangelical Union," •
"choose a common name for Protestant churches," and •
"delineate the geographical work allotments for each church." From 1898 to 1930 the different Protestant denominations that joined the comity agreement were: •
Methodists (1898) assigned most of lowland
Luzon and north of
Manila; •
Presbyterians (1899) assigned
Bicol, Southern
Tagalog area and some parts of
Central and
Western Visayas; •
Baptists (1900) Western Visayas; •
United Brethren (1901)
Mountain Province and
La Union; •
Disciples of Christ (1901)
Ilocos,
Abra, and
Tagalog towns; •
Congregationalists (1902),
Mindanao except for the western end; and •
Christian and Missionary Alliance (1902), Western Mindanao and
Sulu Archipelago. • Brethren (
Kapatirang Kristiano) linked to
Plymouth Brethren, was established in the 1930s in
San Juan, Metro Manila by a missionary named Cyril H. Brooks. They planted numerous chapels in the Philippines with majority in Bulacan, Pampanga and Rizal Province. Manila was open to all denominations and mission agencies. The
Seventh-day Adventist Church and the
Episcopal Church in the Philippines did not join because they wanted to go to all parts of the archipelago.
American Protestant Missions (APM) emphasized institutional ministry and medical missions in their evangelistic and missions endeavors. For a short time the comity agreement worked well, until the situation grew more intricate and splits occurred. The Methodists split in 1909 when
Nicolas Zamora founded the
Iglesia Evangelica Metodista en las Islas Filipinas (IEMELIF). This shattered the agreement. Thus, the IEMELIF became the first indigenous evangelical denomination, an all-Filipino-supported church at that time, with Methodist Ilocanos from Northern Luzon moved into the areas of the
United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Mindanao. Baptist Ilonggos migrated from
Iloilo to central
Cotabato, traditionally Christian and Missionary Alliance territory. As this kind of movement increased, the sharp boundaries between the different comity areas became obscured. Divisions came with growth and expansion, and personality clashes, racial tensions, the dynamics of nationalism, cultural differences, power struggles and other non-theological factors contributed to the schisms. In the 1920s the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the United States affected the Philippines, causing further division. By 1921, some nineteen independent denominations were registered with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and important splits occurred among the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Disciples of Christ. Several small denominations, some of them entirely under national leadership, emerged. Unity of the churches was still a goal. In 1929, the United Brethren, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches formed the
United Evangelical Church in the Philippines. In 1932, six of the smaller indigenous denominations of Presbyterian and Methodist backgrounds formed the
Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo, or now more commonly known as the Unida Christian Church. The assembly of these indigenous denominations was called by Don Toribio Teodoro, owner of the Ang Tibay shoes. The
National Christian Council was founded in 1929 as a successor of the Evangelical Union. This was followed in 1938 by the organization of the
Philippine Federation of Evangelical Churches. With the coming of World War II and the
Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the
United Evangelical Church underwent severe trying circumstances when the mission agencies were completely cut off from the United States. American missionaries were incarcerated and mission funds were unexpectedly discontinued.
World War II and independence To deal with the diverse Protestant groups, the Japanese during their occupation of the Philippines during
Second World War pressed for the formation of the Evangelical Church of the Philippines which combined thirteen denominations. However, most of the larger denominations such as Methodist, Episcopal, Unida and other independent churches refused to join. After the war, the Evangelical Church of the Philippines further fragmented, but the Disciples of Christ, the United Brethren, the Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo, the Evangelica Nacional, some individual congregations of the IEMELIF, the Philippine Methodist and the Presbyterian Churches remained intact. Several churches united to form the
United Church of Christ in the Philippines in 1948. In 1949 the United Evangelical Church, the Philippine Federation of Evangelical Churches, and the Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo formed the Philippine Federation of Christian Churches, now called the
National Council of Churches in the Philippines. Today, Protestant and evangelical churches and denominations are grouped into major councils of churches: The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) for
mainline Protestant churches and the
Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) for evangelical churches, organized in 1964. Several independent church organizations emerged in the 1970s and mid-1980s, such as the
Jesus Is Lord Church, the
Greenhills Christian Fellowship founded in 1978 by the Conservative Baptists, the
Bread of Life Ministries International founded in 1982, and the
Christ's Commission Fellowship and
Victory Christian Fellowship both established in 1984. These churches used mass media to spread evangelical Christianity in the country and to establish more
non-denominational,
Pentecostal, and
charismatic churches. These churches grew up rapidly and are considered one of the major Protestant
megachurches in the Philippines. A major factor in the development of Philippine Protestantism is the explicit expression of religious freedom found in Section 5, Article III ("Bill of Rights) of the
1987 Constitution, separating church and state. The concept and its English phrasing has been present in every national charter since the
1935 Constitution promulgated by the
Commonwealth government. The Philippine Youth Movement founded in 1926 boosted the move to develop the indigenous Protestant church nationwide. A theme in the development of Protestantism in the Philippines is the tension between the religion and nationalism. After an initial period of resentment toward American missionaries, Filipinos gradually accepted Protestantism. During the 1920s and 1930s, American Methodist missionaries openly supported Filipino independence from the United States. ==Education==