The early missions in Davao, over two centuries before the conquest of the gulf, were not spared from dissent between religious orders over issues not of their own making. At the time, Cebu was a diocese after it was set up as Abbacy nullius in...
Fr. Saturnino Urios, SJ, after whom a university he founded in Butuan was named, was born in 1843 in Valencia, Spain, during a time of significant religious and political upheaval in Europe. A man of deep faith and academic rigor, he entered the Society of...
A Jesuit missionary from Spain, Fr. Mateo Gisbert, SJ, was among the earliest Christian evangelizers to bring the Roman Catholic faith to Mindanao during the Spanish colonial period. His mission in Davao, which took place in the latter half of the 19th century, marked a...
Characteristically calm, soft-spoken, amiable, and smiling, Fr. James P. Noonan was a devoted Maryknoll priest whose life was marked by leadership, compassion, and a deep commitment to serving poor communities across the globe. As head priest of Compostela, Davao de Oro, parishioners looked up to...
On December 28, 2009, in faraway Monipuripara, Bangladesh, a saintly priest, once the parish priest of Compostela, Davao de Oro, died serving the Muslims and Hindus. He was 81. Born on June 20, 1928, in Racine, Michigan, USA, Fr. Douglas F. Venne, M.M., was the son...
Roughly eight kilometers from the city center, Tigatto used to be a Moro enclave as much as all other precolonial waterways around the gulf of Davao were. During the Spanish period, after it was reduced and turned into a Christian village, it hosted a number...
Until the arrival of the Jesuits in 1868, Christianization of areas north of the gulf of Davao was inexistent. Earlier, the Recollects penetrated regions in the eastern seaboard of Davao, but their efforts to convert indigenous tribes and Moros to the faith were limited. The first...
Organized in 1988, the National Movement for Free elections (NAMFREL), a Church-led initiative formed to expose any form of pressure and cheating in every nationwide Philippine political exercise, was not among the first to discover that fraudulent polls have long been allowed to prosper with...
Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and terrestrial sightings associated with ethereal events and celestial phenomena are a global subject that has drawn attention from the most conservative scientific community. Testimonies of alien abductions, sightings of flying machines, and reports of contact with strangers from the otherworld...
Though majority of the converts drawn by the missionaries to the fold of Christianity were tribesmen, there were also prominent Moro chiefs who supported the founding of reductions. In March 1895, Datu Nonong, the Moro chief of Hijo, conveyed to Fr. Saturnino Urios, SJ, his interest...