Ground has been broken for the Tacloban City Philippines Temple, one of 13 houses of the Lord dedicated, under construction or announced for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Southeast Asia island nation.
Elder Michael B. Strong, a General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the Philippines Area presidency, presided at the groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 18. He offered remarks to the congregation and a prayer to dedicate the site and construction process.

This will be the first Latter-day Saint temple on the Philippine island of Leyte. Information and photos of the invitation-only event were published Tuesday, Jan. 21, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Elder Strong reflected on the significant growth of the Church in the Philippines in his remarks to those in attendance. The first missionaries to Tacloban arrived in 1968, he explained. Their efforts led to the baptism of George Pamin, the first Latter-day Saint in Tacloban, 56 years ago.
“From this first baptism until now,” said Elder Strong, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has continued to grow and become a vital part of the community of Tacloban and the surrounding region.”
In his dedicatory prayer on the site and construction process, Elder Strong asked that blessings be poured out among God’s children in the Philippines. He prayed that all in the temple district would have greater capacity “to act with charity, compassion, patience and kindness towards our neighbors and to go about doing good.”
About the house of the Lord in Tacloban City
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Tacloban City on Oct. 3, 2021, during October 2021 general conference. It was one of 13 locations worldwide that he identified at the close of the Sunday afternoon session.
A site for the house of the Lord was released March 25, 2024. Planned as a two-story building of approximately 21,407 square feet, the Tacloban City temple will stand on a 6.99-acre site located along the Tacloban Bypass Road near the barangays (barrios) of Utap and Caibaan in Tacloban City.
An exterior rendering for the edifice was released later in the year, on Dec. 9, 2024. Also on the site will stand an ancillary building with an arrival center, patron accommodations and a distribution center.

About Tacloban City and temples in the Philippines
Tacloban is located on Leyte Island in the Eastern Visayas region of the Philippines. The city currently has five stakes, six districts and over 35,000 members.
Since the Philippines opened for missionary work in 1961, Church growth in the country has been among the fastest in the world. By 1970, the Church had a presence on eight major Philippine islands. In 1974, then-Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the first stake in the Philippines.
Today, more than 867,000 Latter-day Saints in almost 1,300 congregations reside in the Philippines. That makes for the fourth-largest population of Latter-day Saints in any country, after the United States, Mexico and Brazil.
The Philippines is home to 13 temples dedicated, under construction or announced. The most recently dedicated was the Urdaneta Philippines Temple by President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, on April 28, 2024 — the 63rd anniversary of missionary work beginning in the Philippines.

The country’s three operating temples are the Manila Philippines Temple (dedicated in 1984), Cebu City Philippines Temple (2010) and Urdaneta temple (2024).
In addition to the Tacloban City temple, four other houses of the Lord are under construction in the Philippines, for Alabang (started in June 2020), Davao (November 2020), Bacolod (December 2021) and Cagayan de Oro (August 2024).
Five temples are in planning and design stages in the country, announced for Naga, Santiago, Tuguegarao City, Iloilo and Laoag.
The closest house of the Lord to Tacloban City is currently in Cebu City, a direct distance of about 95 miles (153 kilometers) southwest to Cebu Island.
