My Vocation Story

My parents taught us to pray the rosary daily together as a family. We were also taught to attend mass every Sunday together as a family. My three brothers and I were taught by our parents to be honest, obedient and respectful to elders. I do not consider my family to be very religious, probably just an average Catholic family.

I grew up in Malabon and studied at St. James Academy, a Catholic school administered by the Maryknoll sisters. As a child, my hobbies were drawing and painting. My mother sent me and my eldest brother to art workshops every summer. She encouraged me to join on-the-spot painting contests, where I won in most of them. When I was in elementary, I thought of taking up Fine Arts in college. But my grandfather discouraged me and told me that it was a career that will make me go hungry.

When I got to high school, I thought of taking up Architecture. Since I like drawing, I thought that maybe I can put my talent to good use if I take up Architecture. But when I was in my fourth year in high school, I met Fr. Sonny Ramirez, OP – a Dominican priest who was our retreat master before our high school graduation. I somehow entertained the idea of trying something different, something extraordinary, like the priesthood. The thought of someday becoming a priest gave me several sleepless nights. Suddenly, while preparing to take up the entrance examinations at the University of Santo Tomas for the course in Architecture, I told my mother that I would like to enter the seminary. The following day, she told our parish priest about my desire to enter the seminary. Soon, our parish priest made arrangements for me to take the entrance examination at San Carlos Seminary in the Diocese of Manila. After a series of examinations for three Saturdays, I was informed through a letter from the Belgian priests in the seminary that I passed the examinations and that I was qualified to enter the seminary.

Meanwhile, the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, who took over our school from the Maryknoll sisters, heard that I was contemplating of entering the seminary. One of the sisters took me and one of my classmates to Santo Domingo Church and instructed us to take the entrance examination at the Dominican seminary. Later on we were informed that we also passed the examinations of the Dominicans.

What made me decide to join the Dominicans and not the diocesan seminary was the idea of community life and mission. As a young boy, I thought to myself that the life of a parish priest must be a lonely one, because they do not have companions unlike that of a religious community. And besides, I thought that the life of a religious or a missionary was more exciting than that of a parish priest. And so after my high school graduation, I decided to enter the Dominican seminary.

After three years in the pre-novitiate, I received the Dominican habit and spent my Novitiate year at Santo Domingo Convent. I found the life of study in the seminary to be very challenging for me and there were subjects in my Philosophy and Theology years which I almost failed. There were times that I almost gave up and thought of leaving the seminary. The only thing that kept me going was my ardent desire to become a Dominican priest someday. After twelve years of seminary formation, I was ordained a Dominican priest in Santo Domingo Church on March 25, 1993, Feast of the Annunciation.