Manila archdiocese's Pabillo named apostolic vicar in Taytay, Palawan

MANILA, Philippines — Pope Francis has named Bishop Broderick Pabillo, who was known as Manila archdiocese's vocal caretaker during the COVID-19 pandemic, to lead the Catholic Church in Taytay in Palawan. 

The Holy See on Tuesday announced that the Pope tapped the 66-year-old as the new vicar apostolic of the Palawan municipality.

Pabillo was apostolic administrator of the influential Archdiocese of Manila from February 2020 up to June 24, 2021. He was given the role after Francis called Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle to lead the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. 

As caretaker, Pabillo led over three million Catholics for more than a year into the health crisis that has gripped the capital region hard.

He spoke out on various national issues in his homilies and denounced the Duterte administration's bloody war on drugs as an "utter failure."

"Have our police and government not learned that accusing, lying, and killing will not work?" he said in Filipino on March 14. "How many thousands have been killed, many who were children and women as collateral damage, but did that solve the drug problem?"

In that month, Pabillo also hit a sweeping ban on religious gatherings which coincided with Holy Week, regarded as among the most important days in the predominantly Catholic nation.

Government then entirely restricted going to places of worship amid a new surge in COVID-19 infections that sent Metro Manila and four provinces to stricter lockdown. 

Pabillo's stint as apostolic administrator ended after Jose Cardinal Advincula was installed as Manila's new archbishop, more than a year since the post was vacant. 

In his new role, he will lead Catholics in Taytay whose population was at over 75,000 per the 2015 census.

An apostolic vicariate is a community where a diocese has yet to be established, and whose pastoral care is given to a vicar.