Global Perspectives: Philippines

The Table Podcast - Issues of God and Culture

Voiceover:

Welcome to The Table podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture. Brought to you by Dallas Theological Seminary.

Darrell Bock:

Welcome to The Table, we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. And today our topic is another one of our global perspectives. And so the country that we're zeroing in on, is the Philippines. And Neil Ty is our guest, Neil graduated from Dallas. How long ago was it that you graduated, Neil?

Neil Ty:

I graduated twice actually from DTS. The second time around was 2019 of May, I finished PhD in New Testament Studies.

Darrell Bock:

Okay. And currently you're doing what? You're teaching, where are you teaching at?

Neil Ty:

I am an adjunct faculty of several seminaries. So one of which is International Graduate School of Leadership here in Metro Manila. Another seminary I help teach is Asia Graduate School of Theology. And it's a consortium of various seminaries here, which I'm teaching currently one subject this semester. Another seminary I help teach is in Nepal, Himalayan Graduate School of Theology. And these are several seminaries I help teach, but I'm at a full-time faculty of any seminary here. I am involved with the Bible study organization to provide Bible study resources amoung churches and pastors here in the Philippines.

Darrell Bock:

And what's that organization? What is it called?

Neil Ty:

The name of the organization is Chinese Christian Fellowship International. It originated in Dallas, Texas. It has its headquarters in Plano, Texas. It initially wanted to bring Bible study resources among Chinese people all over the world. And they eventually branched out and wanted to reach all nations everywhere because they could not change their original name in registered underset. So they continued on with CCF International. And so we provide Bible study resources in local dialects. We have translations into Tagalog and in, I oversee certain Asian ministries, some patient translators.

Darrell Bock:

Okay. So how long have you been in the Philippines?

Neil Ty:

This has been my second year. July 8 of 2019 we traveled back to the Philippines and last July is our second year back in the Philippines.

Darrell Bock:

Okay. So you said back in the Philippines, so did you grow up in the Philippines or…

Neil Ty:

Yes and no.

Darrell Bock:

Okay.

Neil Ty:

I was born in the Philippines and I grew up and I spent my entire life here in the Philippines, except for the 10 years duration I was in Dallas seminary.

Darrell Bock:

When you're in the black hole of your seminary education, right?

Neil Ty:

Yes.

Darrell Bock:

So that's interesting. The one thing I know about, I've never been the Philippines, but the one thing I know about the Philippines is that its car traffic is legendary for its, how can I say this, for its crowded conditions and et cetera. And I've joked with people sometimes asking, so has COVID changed the traffic patterns at all?

Neil Ty:

You know what, during the first lockdown, it is very interesting. It's like a ghost town. When I come out to purchase some groceries, it's like, what's going on? It's like nobody's in the streets, a few cars and few people in the streets. Everybody's so scared to come out. And it was a good traffic condition. I mean, it's flowing smoothly except that right now it has come back to its previous state, except that there's no school going on. So the traffic level is much better than before, but it's still traffic.

Darrell Bock:

So you're in a second lockdown right now, right?

Neil Ty:

Technically this is the third lockdown since March of 2020.

Darrell Bock:

I see, interesting. Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about the Philippines and the Christian Church in the Philippines. Tell us a little bit about the country. First simple question is, what's the population of the Philippines? Do you know? And generally, I mean, not down to the person, but I mean, how large is the Philippines?

Neil Ty:

Currently there's about, almost about 110 million people. So close to about 100 to 110 million people all over the Philippines.

Darrell Bock:

And the size of the Philippines is what? I think I heard you allude to that earlier when we were talking before we started filming.

Neil Ty:

Yes. When I look at the United States, the size of the entire Philippines is just equivalent to the state of Arizona.

Darrell Bock:

So, that's a lot of people in a small space.

Neil Ty:

That's very true.

Darrell Bock:

That's when traffic is flowing normally in Manila, it doesn't flow because there's just so many people on the streets.

Neil Ty:

That's very true. Actually, I was so surprised when I was in Dallas. When I look outside the streets, I seldom see people walking or I see a lot of cars, but only a few cars really compared to the Philippines. But here it's like sea of people, the moment you come out of the streets, sea of people, tons and tons of people walking all throughout the day.

Darrell Bock:

Wow, okay. So how many languages are there in the country?

Neil Ty:

Well, we have one major dialect called Tagalog and every region has their own language or dialect that they speak of. I don't know exactly how many, maybe 60 to 70, I don't have the exact figure, but we have a lot over here.

Darrell Bock:

Okay, but it's not like the situation, say in India where they actually have, once you get past English, an array of languages and depending on what region you're in, that's the language that's spoken?

Neil Ty:

Well, there is a majority language called Cebuano or Visaya. Philippines is divided into three major regions. Luzon or north Philippines, central is Visayas, and Mindanao is the southern Philippines. The Visayan or Cebuano dialect has been spoken by majority of the people here in the Philippines, even if it's not technically the national language. Yet there are still pockets of how it's spoken, even in Vasayas itself, it has different other dialects spoken. And so it's hard to tell when you crossed, there was a time when English was the major medium of instruction in the Philippines. One of the presidents changed it to Tagalog, so everything was dubbed into Tagalog. They used to watch movies in English, on television. And when they made Tagalog to be the national dialect, they had to dub all the American movies into Tagalog. So technically everybody in the Philippines can understand Tagalog because of the television, the movies, but on their heart language, they have their own way of communication.

Darrell Bock:

So you grew up in the Philippines. So how many languages do you have facility with as a result?

Neil Ty:

Yes. Well, my great grandfather from both sides of the family, migrated from China to the Philippines and majority of the Chinese migrants in the Philippines speak a dialect called Hokkien from . So it's a Hokkien language, it's not Mandarin. It's different from Cantonese is predominantly spoken in Hong Kong, but majority of this older generation Taiwanese, they also speak a little Hokkien in Singapore, older generation, the ones that move out of China during that time speak Hokkien. And here in the Philippines, majority of the Filipino Chinese, they speak Hokkien.

Neil Ty:

So growing up, I hear Hokkien a lot at home with my grandparents, with my parents and I attend a Christian church that speaks Hokkien as well in their main preaching. And that's one language I grew up in. The second is Tagalog because I grew up Metro Manila and every household has a helper who cares for kids like me. And the helpers, they speak to us in the local dialect of Tagalog. So I grew up here in Tagalog a lot and I said, that has been my side street language in school. I grew up predominantly learning English as well. So I had to mix, I grew up in…

Darrell Bock:

So basically three languages is what we're talking about.

Neil Ty:

It's true.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. Well, and the reason I go through these questions at the start is I want people to understand that there are cultural and linguistic issues in each country that impact how quickly people can communicate and that kind of thing. So let me ask you one other question, the religious makeup of the Philippines, what's kind of the demographics of that?

Neil Ty:

Yeah, because of 400 years under Spanish rule in the Philippines, predominantly majority of the countrymen are Roman Catholics about 90% or so, but a lot of them are nominal Catholics I would say. And there are the sovereign Philippines is closer to Indonesia and a lot of these Muslims are in the southern most of the Philippines make about 3%. And Christians, or there are Protestants, biblical Christianity started when Americans took over in 1898 and Christian Christianity has grown in about six to 7% of the population are considered to be Evangelical Christians.

Darrell Bock:

So significant Roman Catholic presence. And then the Protestant Christians are about twice the number of the Muslims, is that about right? Cause that's very different than Indonesia. Indonesia has a very significant Muslim population in comparison. Is that right?

Neil Ty:

That's true. That's very true.

Darrell Bock:

So, let's talk about the state of the church in the Philippines. And I kind of want to talk about it in two ways. One is just in general and second is the impact of what COVID has meant for churches and kind of where the churches stand as a result. Because one of the interesting features in doing these of course, is understanding really the differing impact that COVID has had on churches compared to the way its impact to, say, here in the United States. So let's talk generally first. You've said that there's a significant Roman Catholic presence and that there's about 6% Protestant, which I'm taking to be Protestant Evangelical primarily, and then a 3% Muslim. So that when you say predominantly Roman Catholic, you mean very, very, very Roman Catholic. Did you say 90% of the population would self-identify as connected to the Roman Catholic Church?

Neil Ty:

Somehow about 90% or maybe 80, 87, something like that. But I think predominantly, you could see Catholic churches everywhere all over the Philippines, especially here in Metro Manila would see it everywhere in many localities, or we called it Bruneis, have their own Catholic church and patron Saint are named after even the Brunei or the town that it's called. And so it's like Fiesta is a natural thing here and everybody's celebrates the feast of a Saint and it's a regular celebration here all over the country.

Darrell Bock:

So there is an element of shared culture there. And I'm assuming by what you said about the way in which people adhere to the faith that they identify with, that there's a lot of, for lack of better description, nominalism and that the culture is culturally Christian, as opposed to biblically Christian if I can say it that way, is that fair?

Neil Ty:

Yes. Yes, that's very true because you know that the Philippines, even if it's the only Christian nation in Asia, it's one of the most corrupt countries in Asia as well, or maybe second most, or in fact the number one corrupt country in Asia. So it's like what people believe here on a Sunday is different from the way they live out their lives on a weekday basis. So I remember walking the streets, carrying my backpack and for some time somebody would just try to slip a knife and get something out of my backpack if I'm not careful. So you'd see a lot of people put their backpacks in front rather than at the back. Because they have to be careful because there are people who would, because of poverty, and because even if predominantly the are Christians in some sense, but they don't live it out in some sense on a day to day basis, they have to survive. So, yeah.

Darrell Bock:

And how much power does the Roman Catholic Church exercise in Philippines in larger culture or is the culture kind of, for lack of a better description, more secular?

Neil Ty:

Well, generally Filipinos are very religious in terms of their devotion. They go to church, they attend mass and they have this kind of reverence whenever they go to church. And so it's whenever there is this holy week period, you will see people try to do penance. And some are even putting themselves on the cross to be crucified once again. And this is because all throughout the year they've been sinning against God, they recognize that. So it's like they try to make it up by doing some penance. So in a quality that's the kind of lives they live they know they can sin and they can just confess and they can just make it up later on in life.

Darrell Bock:

So is it an honor shame culture, like much of Asia or is there a different element in play in the Philippines?

Neil Ty:

Well, that's a tricky question here because we have several presidents caught in corruption and got imprisoned and they just come out of the prison and run for office once again and forgetting the past is thinking that the people will forget what they've done. So there is not much shame in terms of what people consider to be sinful. And for them, it's like if they can enrich themselves in power or in office, then they're just thinking of themselves in some sense, so materialistic in some sense of culture, they don't have that much aim for honor what they want more is materialistic.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. So let's turn our attention now to the Protestant Church. And obviously this is the circle that you're operating in the Evangelical and Protestant Church. So I think you've intimated that the presence of Protestantism was a reflection of the presence of American late 19th century. And then I'm assuming there was a lot of missionary activity in the Philippines that generated this. Are there certain parts of the country where Protestantism is more prominent? That I ask because again, I'm thinking about India as an analogy. In India, it's the southern part of India that really is the most Christian part of that country. And so help us with kind of the distribution of Protestants in the Philippines.

Neil Ty:

Well, as far as I remember, or as far as I know, when American missionaries team, they divided themselves all over the Philippines, they spread all over the Philippines. And I think in some sense, there is no one location that we could say that's primarily Evangelical Christians and there is a church planting explosion in the Philippines sometime in the 1990s. And at the time the churches are just about 25,000 churches all over the Philippines. And they want to establish a church in every Burang. Burang is like a town or a county. And so it's like that the goal is to have 50,000 churches by the turn of the century, there was this disciple of whole nation or dawn 2000 movement that encourages every church to go plant a church everywhere, all over the Philippines.

Neil Ty:

And it was slightly, almost an impossible goal to achieve because thinking that for, from 1898, all the way to 1990, just 20,000, 25,000 churches how can you do that in 10 years? But at the end of 2000, we reached 51,000 churches and expanded all the more to 70,000 churches continues to do this, this explosion, I think before, even before this pandemic happened. So they're scattered everywhere. Churches have been scattered all over the Philippines. That's how I would say.

Darrell Bock:

And how well trained are the leadership of those churches, and or, are there pastors who lead several churches at once, like used to happen here?

Neil Ty:

That's very true. Well, predominantly of the pastors in the Philippines are untrained. There are several seminaries and think about it. 25,000 churches is exploded, 50,000 churches, seminaries are not able to provide all the adequate training that the explosion happened here of churches. So generally a congregation, a church planter, someone who has a heart's desire to follow the Lord, even if he does not know much about scripture, he has a heart's desire to follow the Lord. So he steps out in faith and plants a church in midst of difficulties of financial constraint. And so we could see this happening all over the Philippines. So there is a lack of training, lack of trained pastors active.

Darrell Bock:

And are many of the pastors bi-vocational? In other words, they work a job and lead a church, or are they exclusively connected to the church or does that depend?

Neil Ty:

Yes, I think it depends on the locality or location that you're in. I remember traveling to central Philippines way back in 2019 before the pandemic. And I conducted a Bible exposition conference as a one full day, how to study the Bible, how to teach the Bible, and how to preach the Bible. And we had several who traveled even by boat, night before. And I spoke to some of the delegates and I said that, what are you doing? You're a pastor, but it's not your main profession. Some of them said I had to take a leave, I'm also teaching in a local school. I took a leave so that I can come here. They traveled the night before they reached there 4:00 AM, we had about eight to five kind of conference. And so they had to rush back and ride the boat back to their hometown that night. So I could see a lot of bi-vocational pastors because the ministry cannot sustain them.

Darrell Bock:

Yes, sure. Well, I didn't ask you this and I probably should have earlier. When you think Protestants, is there a denominational background? What would be the division among the various denominations in the Philippines? I'm assuming that there is some variation.

Neil Ty:

Yeah, there are Baptists, there are full gospels. There are various kinds of, there a lot of independent, I would say in different kinds of denominations that you could think of can be found here in the Philippines.

Darrell Bock:

Are there any dominant denominations in the country or is it pretty spread across a lot of variation?

Neil Ty:

There are large denominations, like different Baptist groups. There's an Episcopal group here, but I don't have the figure of which is the largest denomination in the Philippines, but a lot of the church planters are independent in some sense.

Darrell Bock:

Okay. So let's talk about education here. You said you work for, it's interesting that you work for a consortium of schools that kind of look to sound like they've banded together in order to cover the task. Now, how large are these schools? Because I'm hearing 50,000 churches, that theoretically would be a lot of pastors who need training. And yet I'm assuming that the number that actually get trained is a very small percentage of that total.

Neil Ty:

That's very true. Well, Asia Graduate School of Theology Sequence portion various seminaries so that they could offer PHM and PhD programs for the majority of the seminaries only provide Master Divinity level kind of education here. And in Metro Manila itself, there are three major seminaries, Asian Theological Seminary, International Graduate School of Leadership and Alliance, Biblical Seminary Alliance Graduate School of Theologies, something like that. And each of the seminaries have about maybe maximum about 500 student population. So yearly, they have about close to 100 that graduates their seminary. And so these are the larger ones, I'm not speaking about many other seminaries down south, they're scattered all over the country as well, but in the major cities only.

Darrell Bock:

So this is a very, obviously a very small percentage of the total. Local congregations, let's talk a little about that. I'm again, assuming, well, let me ask you this question. Are there megachurches in the Philippines?

Neil Ty:

Yes. There are megachurches in the Philippines. There was a movement of growth among several churches. When one of our graduates from Dallas Seminary came to pastor church here, Green Hills Christian Fellowship became a megachurch in way back in the 1990s. And it spread all over the country. They have branches all over. It's generally Baptist in this denomination. And another megachurch that that grew is the Victory Christian Fellowship. And it's more full gospel, more Pentecostal in its, they have planted all over the Philippines as well. And another, the megachurch that came up fairly recently in 2000s is the Christ Commission Fellowship. And they have, Christ Commission Fellowship centers all over the Philippines and even in other parts of the world where there are Filipinos.

Darrell Bock:

So within the Protestant grouping, which you said is about 6% of the population, can you give us an estimate of how much of that is charismatic versus non charismatic? What's the breakdown there?

Neil Ty:

To be honest, I don't have that figure, but I would say that there are four gospel denomination. The Victory Christian Fellowship has grown leaps and bounds as well. The Christ Commission Fellowship is more conservative, but it's more independent and headed by an elder of a church. And he initially started among business people. So the business people are lay people. It's a lay movement that it's more Evangelical and more conservative in its background with some campus crusade philosophy ingrained in that church. So they have multiplied leaps and bounds as a result of this discipleship movement that this transpired. But generally these are the three large churches in the Philippines and more have come up, I guess, since I came back. I don't have the names of those churches and I don't have exact figure of how large are each denomination.

Darrell Bock:

Okay. So let's talk about the impact of COVID. One of the things that often gets discussed when you talk about COVID in countries that are spread out like India, like Indonesia, like the Philippines, with a large population and the lack of resources that people have to be connected digitally because it gets expensive. You pay for your data use in a lot of countries, not just to have an account, if I can say it that way, from month to month. And so the ability of churches to connect with people digitally, which I'm assuming on a lockdown is what a church requires, means that there really are cut off from a lot of the people in their churches because people can't afford to be connected. They can't pay the price of being online, if I can say it that way. Is that a predominant problem in the Philippines, and what other problems and issues does the church face there?

Neil Ty:

That's very true. Well, Filipinos love to get engaged in the social media. So there are certain companies that offers, you could have access to Facebook or YouTube when you subscribe to certain kinds of plan and some prepaid event can provide you some access to social media. And so I think Philippines is one of the number one social media connection in spite of the poverty. However, in terms of churches posting their online stuff, there's still many, especially the older generation, the younger generation keep in touch. They prioritize to get themselves connected social media, but the older ones, those who are not aware of how to even have a smartphone or a tablet, they are the ones who suffers the most.

Neil Ty:

And so many of them don't have internet access. To give one example, my mom, she doesn't have internet at home. She doesn't want to pay extra. So she just uses the cell phone to call and she uses the television to watch every day, but she doesn't have access to social media. So my dad is more involved with social media than my mom. So if she needs to go to church, then my dad would just turn on his phone data so that they can watch a church service together.

Darrell Bock:

So churches that are trying to connect are doing so, as happened, here, by broadcasting their services and that kind of thing. But the ability to gather, ability to pastor significantly, that kind of thing has become very limited in the context of COVID, correct?

Neil Ty:

That's very true. And the government has made some restrictions like during this lockdown here in Metro Manila, no religious gathering at all. And there was a time when our classification went to general community quarantine with some restrictions for at least about 30% of capacity are allowed. But it's more difficult for churches that can't bring everyone in it because kids are not allowed to even join the religious gatherings. Seniors or older people are not even allowed. So families are just torn between, shall I stay with my kids or go to church. So most of them just stay at home, and depends on the churches. Some churches continue still to meet, take a risk to just meet, but majority are just staying at home.

Darrell Bock:

So there's real isolation. And the ability for the church to function has been hampered significantly by COVID.

Neil Ty:

That's very true.

Darrell Bock:

Yeah, okay. One last question here, but set COVID aside. What other aspects of the religious environment represent challenges for the church in the Philippines? What would you say the church struggles with and even in the pre COVID environment when it was functioning, when churches were functioning more normally?

Neil Ty:

Yeah, I think even before the pandemic happened, I think the biggest challenge of churches is somehow to break the religious mindset of the people, to go and share the gospel. Here in the Philippines it's easy to share the gospel. Everybody believes in Jesus, especially Roman Catholics and 90%, we talked to them about Jesus, about the Bible. They don't have anything against Jesus or the Bible, but the moment they trust in Christ and you encourage them to be baptized, they would say, oh, I'm sorry that I could not continue on from here, I can just believe in Jesus, but I would not dare step in a church because in a non-Catholic church setting, entering into a non-Catholic church setting is a sin against my religion and I grew up in this kind of environment.

Neil Ty:

So I would not break with my family ties. So that's the biggest challenge that Filipinos, Philippine churches face. I think the younger ones are the ones that are easily reached because they're are more open to new things. And so this growth of the movement has been primarily targeted among the young ones and the older ones are the ones that are suffering the most in terms of penetrating into reaching the gospel for them.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. Well, Neil, I want to thank you for giving us your time and kind of giving us a glimpse of the Philippines and glimpse is probably the right word and much appreciated your willingness to share a little bit about what's going on in the Philippines. One last question is if people want to pray for the Philippines, what would you encourage them to do?

Neil Ty:

Yes. I think one of the prayers that we need to pray for the Philippines is people are afraid, churches are afraid, Christians are afraid. And so it's like this Delta virus that this Delta variant is just spreading like crazy here in the Philippines. And so people are afraid of their lives and more so they don't go out anymore. So how can a Christian live out as a Christian in this kind of environment? This is a real threat to their lives. So pray that God will take over your fear and that there will be still boldness among Christians to take up and step out in faith in midst of this difficult setting or difficult scenario.

Darrell Bock:

Well, thank you again, Neil, for taking the time to be with us, we really do appreciate the glimpse that you've given us of the Philippines. And I want to thank you for joining us on The Table today. Please do subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app. Leave us an honest review, this helps people to discover who we are and these conversations. We hope you'll join us next time on The Table, where we discuss issues of God and culture.

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