KALOOKAN Bishop Pablo Virgilio David was elected as president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) during the first day of the bishops' online plenary assembly Thursday, July 8, 2021, CBCP's official news service CBCP News reported.
David, 62, will succeed Archbishop Romulo Valles of Davao. His two-year term will begin on December 1, 2021.
David has been serving as conference vice president since December 2017 and is known as one of the country’s leading Bible scholars, according to CBCP News.
He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of San Fernando in 1983 and appointed as auxiliary bishop of the same archdiocese in 2006. He was among the five Filipino bishop delegates to the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God in the Vatican in 2008.
He was transferred to the Kalookan diocese in January 2016.
In 2019, the Ateneo de Manila University conferred its “Bukas Palad Award” on David for his service to the poor and “for his courage in speaking out against the evil of injustice and violence."
The bishops also elected Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara of Pasig as the new vice president.
Vergara, 58, was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Manila in 1990, appointed as bishop of San Jose in Nueva Ecija in 2005 and named as bishop of Pasig in 2011.
He is currently a member of the CBCP Permanent Council, which acts for and on behalf of the organization when the plenary assembly is not in session. Vergara will also begin his two-year term on December 1, 2021. (SunStar Philippines from PR)