Mindanao rejoices over Quevedo's appointment as Cardinal

COTABATO CITY, Philippines -  Mindanao’s Catholic community was elated by the Pope's  appointment of Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo as a cardinal. Quevedo is from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) congregation.

The OMI, whose pontifical base is in Rome, has been operating religious and humanitarian missions, and peace-building projects in Central Mindanao, and in the island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi since after World War II.

“This is an extra blessing for the OMI whose presence in the Philippines is now in its 75th year,” said Oblate missionary Eliseo Mercado Jr., director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance, which is involved in various peace-building programs in Mindanao.

Four members of the OMI --- Jolo Bishop Benjamin De Jesus, and three other priests -- have been killed r in the past four decades while performing missionary works in hostile areas in Southern Mindanao.

Quevedo, an active supporter of the Mindanao peace process, will be inducted into the College of Cardinals during a “consistory” on February 22, according to sources in the OMI provincial house here.

Students of the OMI’s Notre Dame University (NDU) here, which is Central Mindanao’s biggest private school, have greeted Quevedo and the OMI congregation on their Facebook timelines, and via Tweeter.

Quevedo is popular here for his advocacy for Muslim-Christian solidarity. He has also  been actively  encouraging the public to support the  peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Quevedo, born in 1939 in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, professed his first priestly vows in Mission, Texas in 1957.

From Texas, he returned to the Philippines to study philosophy, and subsequently studied theology at the Oblate College in Washington D.C. where he was ordained priest in 1964.

Much of Quevedo’s ministry, prior to being named a bishop, was focused on education and religious formation.

He became president of the NDU here from 1970 to 1976, and was superior of the Oblate Scholasticate in Quezon City, from 1979 to 1980.

Quevedo was later appointed Bishop of the Prelature of Kidapawan, which became a diocese in 1983. He was archbishop of Nueva Segovia from 1986 to 1998, before he assumed as Cotabato’s archbishop. He had served as CBCP president from 1999 to 2003, while secretary of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

Quevedo was also a member of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1991 to 2001, and the General Council for the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in Rome from 1994 to 2000.