The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced dedication and open house dates for the Bacolod Philippines Temple.
On May 31, 2026, Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Bacolod temple. The 10 a.m. dedicatory session — to be broadcast to all units in the temple district — will be rebroadcast later that day at 2 p.m.
This dedication will follow an open house from April 16 to May 2, 2026, excluding Sundays. A media day will also be held April 13, and invited guests will tour the temple April 14-15, 2026.
That will make the Bacolod temple the sixth house of the Lord dedicated in the Philippines.
These dates were first published in a Dec. 15 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Bacolod won’t have the only Philippines temple dedication of the year. Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is scheduled to dedicate the Alabang Philippines Temple on Jan. 18, 2026.
And just two weeks ago, the dedication date of another Philippines temple was announced — the Davao Philippines Temple is planned to be dedicated May 3, 2026, by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Now that the Bacolod temple has a dedication date too, the first half of 2026 will double the number of operating temples in the Philippines, from three to six.
About this temple
A single-story structure, the Bacolod temple is roughly 26,700 square feet in size, standing on a 12.3-acre site. An ancillary building of approximately 18,000 square feet was also planned to be built, to include patron housing, an arrival center and a distribution center. Bacolod lies on Negros Island in the central Visayas islands.
President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Bacolod, Philippines, during the women’s session of October 2019 general conference. It was one of eight temples he announced on Oct. 5, 2019.
Ground was later broken for the Bacolod temple on Dec. 11, 2021, presided over by Elder Taniela B. Wakolo. Elder Wakolo — a General Authority Seventy and then president of the Philippines Area — also dedicated the site and construction process.
“This temple will then stand not only as a symbol of our membership in the Church,” he said, “but as a sign of our faith in life after death and as a sacred step toward eternal glory for us and our families.”
The Church in the Philippines
Of the 14 houses of the Lord in the Philippines, three are dedicated, three are scheduled for dedication, two are under construction, and six are in planning stages.
In operation are the Manila (dedicated in 1984), Cebu City (2010) and Urdaneta (2024) temples.
As previously mentioned, three Philippines temples are scheduled for dedication: the Alabang temple (Jan. 18, 2026), Davao temple (May 3, 2026) and Bacolod temple (May 31, 2026).
Two other temples are currently under construction in the Philippines — for Cagayan de Oro, with ground broken August 2024, and Tacloban City, ground broken January 2025.
The final six Philippines temples are planned for the following cities: Naga (announced 2022), Santiago (2022), Tuguegarao City (2023), Iloilo (2023), Laoag (2023) and San Jose del Monte (2025).
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.
The country is now home to nearly 900,000 Latter-day Saints in around 1,325 congregations. With its high number of Church members, the Philippines has the fourth-largest population of Latter-day Saints in the world.
