Archbishop Antonio Lloren Mabutas † (13 June 1921 – 22 April 1999) was the first bishop of Diocese of Laoag and the second Archbishop of the

Archdiocese of Davao The Archdiocese of Davao (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Davaensis)'' is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. It is a metropolitan see in southern Mindanao. The archdiocese comprises the city of Davao, The Island ...

. He succeeded Clovis Thibault, PME on 9 December 1972. He was also the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines from 1981 to 1985. He is noted to be the first Roman Catholic Archbishop to write a pastoral letter to criticize

human rights violations Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

under the

Marcos dictatorship At 7:17 pm on September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced on television that he had placed the entirety of the Philippines under martial law. This marked the beginning of a 14-year period of one-man rule that would effectively last ...

Early years

Born in

Agoo Agoo, officially the Municipality of Agoo ( ilo, Ili ti Agoo; pag, Baley na Agoo; fil, Bayan ng Agoo), is a 1st class municipality in the province of La Union, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 66,028 people. Ago ...

, La Union, he was ordained as priest on 6 April 1946 at the young age of 24. On 5 June 1961 he was appointed as bishop of Laoag and was ordained a month after.

Archbishop of Davao

Before becoming as Archbishop of Davao, the then Most Rev. Antonio Ll. Mabutas was appointed as coadjutor archbishop of Davao with Most Rev. Clovis Thibault, PME, JCL, DD as its first Archbishop during the time the Diocese of Davao was erected into an Archdiocese. Before becoming the Archbishop of Davao he served as titular archbishop of Valeria on 25 July 1970. He succeeded as the archbishop of Davao on 9 December 1972. The pastoral letter he wrote against Martial law, "Reign of Terror in the Countryside", citing

human rights abuses Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and killings of church workers, is notable for having been the first pastoral to be written against Marcos' martial law administration.

Retirement and death

He retired as archbishop of Davao on 6 November 1996. He died at the age of 77 where he served as a priest for 53 years and a bishop for 37 years.

Legacy

Some of Archbishop Mabutas' effects have been preserved, and are viewable to the public at the Museo de Iloko in his hometown of Agoo, La Union.

References

Memoirs of Antonio Ll. Mabutas: Archbishop of Davao, a Tambara Publication, Ateneo de Davao University, 1996

External links