Kidapawan to have new bishop
By Edwin Fernandez
Mindanao Bureau
First Posted 16:13:00 05/17/2008
COTABATO CITY, Philippines -- The Vatican has named a bishop perceived to be politically moderate as head of the Diocese of Kidapawan.
Bishop Romulo T. Dela Cruz will soon assume the position vacated by Bishop Romulo Valles more than a year ago.
Valles, a staunch Arroyo critic, was transferred to the Archdiocese of Zamboanga in January last year.
An announcement released by Archbishop Edward Adams, the Vatican's envoy to Manila, said Pope Benedict XVI named Dela Cruz to the Diocese of Kidapawan on May 14.
The announcement did not say, however, when Dela Cruz, currently the bishop of Antique, will move to the Kidapawan dicocese, which also embraces the provinces of North Cotabato, part of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat.
The 60-year-old prelate was born in Iloilo but his family later migrated to Mindanao.
Dela Cruz finished his elementary education at the Maltana Elementary School in Tampakan, South Cotabato, in 1960. He moved to Kidapawan to study at the Notre Dame of Kidapawan Boys' department and eventually entered the Notre Dame Archdiocesan Seminary here.
While at the seminary, Dela Cruz also studied Philosophy at the Catholic-run Notre Dame University here. He also studied at the St. Francis Xavier Major Seminary in Davao City.
Dela Cruz became a priest at age 29.
Among his early assignments as a newly ordained priest was to serve in the Tacurong parish in Sultan Kudarat, He was also assigned to Basilan in the 1980s.
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