As it prepares to dedicate the Urdaneta Philippines Temple next month, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a site for the Tacloban City Philippines Temple, one of 13 houses of the Lord that are operating, under construction or in planning for the Southeast Asia island nation.
Released by the First Presidency, the site and accompanying location map were first published Monday, March 25, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. More information for the temple — such as an exterior rendering and date for groundbreaking — will be released later.
Planned as a two-story building of approximately 21,407 square feet, the Tacloban City Philippines Temple will be built on a 6.99-acre site located along the Tacloban Bypass Road near the barangays (barrios) of Utap and Caibaan in Tacloban City. Tacloban is located on Leyte Island in the Philippines’ Eastern Visayas region.
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Tacloban City on Oct. 2, 2021, it being one of 13 new temple locations he identified in the Sunday afternoon session of October 2021 general conference.
The Church in the Philippines
Aniceta Fajardo was the first Filipino baptized, in 1946, being taught and converted by Latter-day Saint servicemen stationed in the Philippines during World War II. While a few others joined later in the 1940s and into the 1950s, missionary work on the Southeast Asia island nation didn’t start until 1961.
By the end of the 1960s, the Church had a presence on eight major islands. In 1974, then-Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the first stake in the Philippines. And in the 1990s, membership surpassed a quarter of a million members.
Today, more than 853,000 members of the Church reside in the Philippines and comprise nearly 1,275 congregations. That makes for the fourth-largest population of Latter-day Saints in any country, behind only the United States, Mexico and Brazil.
Temples in the Philippines
Today, the Philippines has 13 total houses of the Lord — dedicated and operating, scheduled for dedication, under construction or in planning.
The Manila Philippines Temple (dedicated in 1984) and the Cebu City Philippines Temple (2010) are the country’s two operating temples. The Urdaneta Philippines Temple will be the third when it is dedicated April 28 by President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency.
Three more houses of the Lord are under construction — in Alabang (started in June 2020), Davao (November 2020) and Bacolod (December 2021). Besides Tacloban City, six other temples have been announced and are in planning — in Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Laoag, Naga, Santiago and Tuguegarao City.
