If religiosity is the cultural embodiment and manifestation of faith, then Catholicism in the lowland Philippines is basically expressed in two forms of religiosity: official and popular Catholicism. The first derives from an external dissemination of the Christian message by missionaries from the West and is still in the main understood and expressed in terms of European culture, while the second comes from the active reception or appropriation of Catholic Christianity by the natives of the islands. – José M. de Mesa in Primal Religions and Popular Religiosity (East Asian Pastoral Review 2000)
