San Diego, retired bishop, dies; 79

RETIRED Bishop Francisco C. San Diego died early Wednesday following a bout with lung cancer at Cardinal Santos Medical Center Hospital in San Juan City, Metro Manila. He was 79.

San Diego, a former bishop of the San Pablo Diocese in Laguna province, had long been a diabetes patient and was recently stricken with lung cancer. He died past 4 a.m. Wednesday of cardiopulmonary arrest, according to medical information released by his physicians and quoted by a hospital personnel in a phone interview.

“Let us remember the good bishop in our prayers and Masses. Please pass,” said Laguna Bishop Bienvenido M. Famadico through his chancellor, Fr. Francis Eugene A. Fadul, in a text message to all priests and leaders of the diocese.

San Diego had spent his retirement years in a simple housing unit in San Lorenzo Subdivision in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna, which was donated by a friend. He would have turned 80 on Oct. 10.

The prelate had served as bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Palawan and of the Diocese of San Pablo from 1995 to 2003, and of the Diocese of Pasig, from 2003 to 2010.

On May 22, 2010, he baptized as Catholics international singing sensation Charice Pempengco and her brother Carl Ceiven, an event that was widely covered by local and international media organizations.

San Diego, a native of Barangay Lawa, Obando, Bulacan province, was ordained on Dec. 21, 1963, and was consecrated as bishop on Aug. 10, 1983, by the late Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, Archbishop Bruno Torpigliani, according to information from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines website.

His remains lie at Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Pasig City. A requiem Mass will be held on Aug. 29 at

4:30 p.m., according to a notice from the Laguna Diocese. Romulo O. Ponte