THE VATICAN has appointed a Thomasian as auxiliary bishop of Manila.
Fr. Broderick Socauco Pabillo of the Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Princesa will join Bishop Bernardino Cortez as assistant to Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales. The apostolic nuncio to the Philippines, Archbishop Fernando Filoni, announced the appointment in a press release last May 24.
A native of Negros Occidental, Pabillo is a former Salesian priest who was incardinated to the Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Princesa. Until his appointment as bishop, he was the parish priest of Saint Ezequiel Moreno Parish.
Pabillo was ordained in 1982 after finishing Sacred Theology at the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties. In 1986, he obtained his licentiate degree in Sacred Scriptures at the Pontificium Institutum Biblicum in Rome.
College of Fine Arts and Design Regent Fr. Regino Cortes, O.P. said Pabillo deserved his elevation due to his hard work and pro-poor initiatives.
“I am happy for Pabillo. His work in a poor parish in Palawan has been rewarded rightly by the Vatican,” said Cortes. Cortes was Pabillo’s mentor at UST and the new bishop’s colleague at the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ Episcopal Commission on Biblical Apostolate.
The 51-year-old bishop also served as professor and rector of the Salesian Theologate in Parañaque from 1996 to 1999. He was the assistant parish priest of San Ildefonso Parish, in Bangkal, Makati from 1986 to 1988 and a staffer of Don Bosco Seminary College in Laguna from 1982 to 1986.
