PNoy lauds Cardinal Quevedo's peace efforts

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino III honored Central Mindanao’s Catholic community with his presence in Tuesday’s thanksgiving mass here for the 75th birthday and 50th ordination anniversary of Orlando Cardinal Quevedo.

Dozens of priests, bishops, auxiliary bishops, and nuns representing various congregations attended the afternoon mass at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral at the heart of Cotabato City.

President Aquino was accompanied to the worship site, from the Awang Airport in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town, by Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The thanksgiving mass also celebrated the 75th year in the Philippines of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) congregation, to which Quevedo belongs.

The OMI, whose pontifical base is in Rome, took over from the Jesuits most of their parishes in Central Mindanao in the 1930s, and has since been operating humanitarian missions in the region and in Moro communities in what are now chartered island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Aquino, in a message after the mass, lauded Quevedo, who is of Ilocano descent, for his peace-building efforts meant to foster religious solidarity among Central Mindanao’s Muslim, Christian, and indigenous non-Moro communities.

The President said Quevedo’s examples are worth emulating.

Quevedo was named cardinal by the Pope on January 12, making him Vatican’s envoy to Mindanao.

Quevedo, in a homily, said he is grateful to local sectors that have been helping foster Muslim-Christian unity in Central Mindanao.

“A land thirsting for peace, thirsting for harmony,” Quevedo said, referring to Central Mindanao, where the OMI has various missionary programs.