Archbishop Jose Ma. Cuenco

October 8 marks the 28^th death anniversary of a distinguished Cebuano, Archbishop Jose Ma. Cuenco (1885-1972).

Archbishop Cuenco was born in Carmen, Cebu, on May 19, 1885, the eldest child of Mariano Albao Cuenco and Remedios Diosomito. His father – a journalist, Clerk of Court, and failed candidate for Cebu governor – died in 1909, and it was his mother who largely raised Jose’s 15 sisters and brothers (among them, Mariano Jesus and Miguel, who became a senator and congressman respectively).

Given the best education of his time (in Cebu, Manila, and in Georgetown University in the U.S, where he earned a doctorate in law), Cuenco decided to forsake a career in law to enter the priesthood. He was ordained a priest on June 11, 1914.

It was as a churchman that he had a distinguished career. He was vicar general of the Cebu Diocese in 1925 and founding parish priest of the city’s Santo Rosario parish in 1933. He became auxiliary bishop of Jaro in 1945. Six years after, he became Jaro Archbishop.

Active and highly visible in evangelization work, Cuenco was the founder-editor of the Cebu Catholic newspaper El Boletin Catolico (1915-1930), continuing work that his own father was engaged in, since Mariano Albao Cuenco was publisher-editor of the pioneering Catholic newspaper in Cebu, Ang Camatuoran (1902-14911).

The Cuenco family was associated with printing and publishing (as newspaper publishers and owners of Imprenta Rosario, one of Cebu’s early printshops. “Printer’s ink” was in Archbishop Cuenco’s blood. He authored and published close to a dozen books, mostly narratives of his travels and experiences, including Archbishop Cuenco: Autobiography (Iloilo: La Editorial, 1972), which came out shortly before he died in Jaro on October 8, 1972.

A diligent collector of personal memorabilia, he left behind in Jaro a very large collection of books, newspapers, photographs, and assorted souvenirs of his career and world travels.

- Ybarra