ILOILO CITY – The Archdiocese of Jaro formally installed Most Rev. Midyphil Billones as its new archbishop on Wednesday, during a solemn High Mass with the rite of canonical possession at the Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral.
Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, for whom Billones previously served as Auxiliary Bishop, highlighted the sacred responsibility now entrusted to him.
“He has placed you here not because you are a deserving son of Jaro, certainly the most suitable for the ministry, as we say taga-Jaro gid (truly from Jaro). But simply because the Lord has chosen you to be the vicar of His love especially, to the last, the least, and the lost,” Palma said.
The event began with a canonical procession from the Archbishop’s Residence to the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, led by Papal Nuncio to the Philippines, Most Rev. Charles John Brown, along with 47 bishops and archbishops from across the country, and hundreds of priests.
In his address, Billones expressed gratitude to those who shaped his ministry, including Palma and his predecessor, Archbishop-emeritus Jose Romeo Lazo.
“This installation is a beautiful flowering of your years of priestly ministry. And I only hope, even though imperfectly, I can extend the legacy of your humble sandals and the blooming staff that walks to the side of the people,” he said.
He also acknowledged the Jaro clergy, once his mentors, now his fellow priests.
“I am fully aware of my weaknesses. It’s just that I know yours, too. This would keep us humble and more compassionate to one another as we burn bright with the ecclesiological awareness that it is God’s mercy that urges us to be united in loving and serving the church,” he added.
Brown called the celebration a “highly significant day,” as it coincided with the feast of St. Pedro Calungsod, a Visayan saint.
Billones is the 14th bishop of Jaro since its founding in 1865, and the seventh archbishop since its elevation to an archdiocese in the 1950s.
“As the Apostolic Nuncio, I ask you, I beg you, cherish your archbishop, respect your archbishop, pray for your archbishop, and love your archbishop because he is God’s gift to you as your episcopus, the one who watches over his beautiful caravan of God,” Brown told the Ilonggo faithful.
He also urged prayers for Pope Francis, who has returned to the Vatican but has yet to fully recover.
Billones succeeds Lazo, who retired after 50 years in priesthood and serving seven years as Jaro’s archbishop.
Born on July 4, 1969, in Panay, Capiz, Billones was ordained a priest in 1995 by then-Archbishop Alberto Piamonte and ordained bishop in 2019 by Lazo, both at the Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral.