THOMASIAN Archbishop Emeritus Edmundo Abaya of Nueva Segovia passed away last Sept. 20 at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan. He was 89.
Abaya studied at the University of Santo Tomas from 1947 to 1953 and was ordained priest at the Diocese of Nueva Segovia in 1953.
He obtained a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas in Rome in 1963.
He was named bishop of Laoag in 1978, making him the first Filipino bishop appointed by Pope St. John Paul II in the Philippines.
In 1999, Abaya was appointed archbishop of Nueva Segovia, where he served until his retirement in 2005.
He was rector of the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary in Vigan and chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.
