MANILA, Philippines – Sorsogon Bishop-emeritus Arturo Bastes, a known environmentalist, succumb to death Sunday morning, at the age of 80.
The news service of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) confirmed that Bastes died at 6:30 am on Sunday but no further details has yet provided.
Born in Loboc, Bohol, on April 1, 1944, Bastes was ordained a priest for the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) on November 28, 1970.
The SVD is a group of missionaries founded in the Netherlands in 1875 and is now composed of more than 5,700 people across 79 countries, including the Philippines.
The late prelate first entered the SVD’s Christ the King Mission Seminary in Quezon City in 1956 and graduated in Associate in Arts in the same seminary, before finishing Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy .
Took his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Master of Arts in Philosophy, both at the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay City.
He went on regency and taught at St. Augustine’s Minor Seminary in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro. Went back to Tagaytay and took his Theology.
He then took gradyate studies in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy; Licentiate in Sacred Scriptures at the Pontifical Biblical Insitute, also in Rome; and Language Studies (Italian) at the Universita Italiana Per Strainieri; (German) Walchensee Sprachinstitut in Walchensee, West Germany; and (French) at the Institut Catholique de Parish Alliance Francaise in Paris, France.
He hold different teaching and managerial positions in different seminaries, parishes and mission houses of the SVD across the country and abroad, until St. Pope John Paul II named him as Bishop of the Diocese of Romblon in 1997; and bishop of Sorsogon in 2003 and served there until his retirement in 2019.| – Joenald Medina Rayos
