Bishop Patricio Alo, D.D.

Through the April 25 Shalom Column of Davao Catholic Herald I would like to share three things with which I will always remember Bishop Patricio Alo, first Bishop of the Diocese of Mati.

1. His love for the Sacred Scripture made him perform a remarkably excellent lecture on the Holy Bible. His audience? About 18 Muslim Ulama. Why? Exchange of Holy Qur’an and Holy Bible, an activity of the Bishops-Ulama Conference. When? Sometime in early 1999. Where? Casa Leticia, Ilustre St., Davao City. Why? Sharing on essential basis of our respective faiths.
2. In his concern for effective social communication in the Church he put up a radio station and a short-circuit TV Station. On this matter he was the only Mindanao bishop who attended with me and Mr. Leonilo Claudio the annual meeting of the BBC (Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference) on diverse issues of media and Social Communication.
3. And, finally, because of his priestly love for Jesus, the face of the Father’s Mercy needs to be made visible and available in a beautiful Divine Mercy Shrine Church near the Bishop’s House in Mati. He allowed the construction.

To me then Bp. Pat was a good person, a good priest, a humble bishop.

Postscript: from Fr. Loloy Mahinay’s sharing at the Mati Cathedral funeral rites, 19 April 2021: Bishop Alo, before breathing his last, some minutes after dialysis in a Tagum hospital, asked Sr. Precy, “where is archbishop Fernando R. Capalla?” …my remark later: “Bp. Pat was again asking permission… to go home to Heaven!”