Arroyo to grace Quevedo celebration

COTABATO CITY — President Arroyo will join more than a dozen bishops and some 200 priests from across the country in tomorrow’s celebration here of the 25-year bishophood of Oblate missionary Orlando Quevedo, who is popular for his advocacy of Muslim-Christian solidarity and inter-faith peace dialogues.

An archbishop of the Cotabato diocese for almost a decade now, Quevedo, who belongs to the Vatican-based Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, served as president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for two consecutive terms.

The organizers of the celebration, including Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, have confirmed the attendance of the President.

The archdiocese of Cotabato has a missionary center here, which also serves the neighboring provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao and North Cotabato, and Tacurong City.

Sema, in a statement published in the Mindanao Cross, the Oblates’ 55-year-old weekly newspaper published here, said Quevedo ought to be feted because of his peace initiatives between Central Mindanao’s Muslim and Christian communities.

"Such a display of goodwill has earned him the respect and appreciation of the Moro people," Sema said.

Sema, secretary-general of the Moro National Liberation Front, said Quevedo has been actively helping sustain the Sept. 2, 1996 peace accord between the government and the MNLF.

Quevedo was among the first religious leaders to prod President Arroyo to resume peace talks with the MILF following former President Joseph Estrada’s military adventurism in the South in 2000, which resulted in the takeover of known MILF enclaves in Central Mindanao and eventually an impasse in the negotiations.

Msgr. Jose Collin Bagaforo, vicar-general of the Archdiocese of Cotabato, said among those who have confirmed their attendance in the celebration are Papal Nuncio Antonio Franco, the Vatican’s official representative to the Philippines, and Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales.

Bagaforo said a concelebrated Mass at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral here by Quevedo, Franco and Cardinal Ricardo Vidal will cap the celebration.

Bagaforo said the President will attend both the Mass and the fellowship dinner which the Catholic community will host in honor of Quevedo.