Religiosity of Filipinos. How does it Affect their Lives?

Philippines is known to be a quite religious country, where majority of people are Christians and mostly active with their churches. As a Christian culture,a town is facilitated by a parish priest in a certain town. He is also vastly supported by people.
One positive character I like about Filipinos is their persistence.They don’t easily give up with trials in life and just lift them all to God instead. They never cease praying,they believe that God wont give you problems that you cant handle.Because also of religion which teaches morals,people value generosity and help people who are in need.Its by sharing your blessings which lightens burdens of the needy. And it happens vice versa.Theres cooperation within a community just like a one big family. They value sharing. One good example is when one student inside a university has one deceased family member, one facilitates to collect donations from the whole university as a financial aid to the grieving family. They are determined to give assistance.Though Philippines is enduring bad economic situation but people never lose hope and handles problems dramatically.

From a westerner point of view?

I had a conversation with my Canadian friend when I was going to Palawan and prior to my flight
I asked him to pray for my trip but he didn’t, instead he told
me that praying is only for stupid people who believe in miracles. He doesn’t believe in God, but believes in technology in this contemporary world. When we talked further, he asked why do I think western countries where majority of people doesn’t have a religion are progressive?, a big distinction from this religious country
If God exist, He wont let his devoted people suffer.
What does he thinks about it? He calls it stupidity that Filipinos rely on God instead of working hard to improve their lives. That these people believe in miracles which is crazy.
Philippines is actually like that but they’ll never know since they have their own cultures and tradition. ..
It’s a big part of our lives,it runs in our blood ...And its not a big deal!We have different styles right?We are succcessful through our own ways..Its not just about work work and work...