TWO Kapampangan bishops have been elected to key positions of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) permanent council and will serve from December 1, 2019 until November 30, 2021.
Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan was elected vice president of the CBCP while fellow Kapampangan Bishop Roberto C. Mallari was elected as head of the Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education.
Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles was re-elected as president until 2021.
The election was held during the ongoing 119th Plenary Assembly being held at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila.
It could be recalled that David, a known Bible scholar, was the second bishop appointed to the Diocese of Kalookan since its establishment in 2003. David was born on March 2, 1959 in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga.
He was ordained a priest on March 12, 1983. Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of San Fernando on May 27, 2006 and was ordained Bishop on July 10, 2006. David finished his college seminary formation at the San Jose Seminary, Ateneo de Manila University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Pre-Divinity degree.
He took his Master of Arts degree in Theology at the Loyola School of Theology, also in Ateneo, and proceeded to earn his Licentiate in Sacred Theology degree from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium in 1988.
The following year, he took up a doctorate degree in Sacred Theology, also at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
David was a member of the Permanent Council of the CBCP from 2007 to 2013 and chaired the Episcopal Commission on Biblical Apostolate of the CBCP from 2009 to 2015.