AMBO DELILAN
Bishop Louie Galbines entered the Diocese of Bacolod on Tuesday, August 11, not only as its new shepherd but also into a pulpit long associated with speaking for those on the margins.
As the 59-year-old prelate formally took over the diocese, human rights advocates and labor leaders were already asking whether he would carry forward its tradition of confronting corruption, defending workers and standing with victims of rights abuses.
For now, Galbines offered no sweeping declaration on those issues.
Instead, at his canonical installation at San Sebastian Cathedral, he spoke of trust.
“I trust in the Lord, I trust in my brother priests, I trust in the consecrated persons and I trust in the people as I lead the Diocese of Bacolod,” Galbines said.
His restrained message stood in contrast to the public record of some of the bishops who occupied the same seat before him.
Be with the oppressed
Human Rights Advocates Negros (HRAN), in welcoming Galbines, invoked the legacy of the late Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich, whose nearly two-decade tenure made him one of the most outspoken Catholic voices on social justice in Negros.
“As we celebrate also today the life of late Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich, the new bishop may find inspiration with his life and bear witness to people’s issues we face including corruptions, shepherding the flock for genuine societal change,” HRAN said.
The group said it also hopes the diocese under Galbines will continue to hear the cries of victims of human rights violations and keep its doors open to people facing persecution.
Labor advocates have a similar expectation.
“We expect the new good bishop of Bacolod to defend the workers against labor oppression,” said Wennie Sancho, secretary general of the Negros-based General Alliance of Workers Associations (GAWA).
These calls come with a history that is difficult to separate from the office Galbines now occupies.
Fortich, who served as the third bishop of Bacolod from 1967 to 1989, openly challenged human rights abuses during Martial Law and warned that deepening inequality could turn society into what he famously called a “social volcano.”
He was also a staunch defender of sugar workers and small farmers. In 1969, he established the Dacongcogon Sugar and Rice Milling Company in Barangay Tabugon, Kabankalan City, to benefit small sugar and rice producers.
Controversial fight
Bishop Vicente Navarra, the fifth bishop of Bacolod, later brought the diocese into a national debate over the reproductive health law.
During the 2013 elections, the Diocese became embroiled in a legal battle over its “Team Buhay, Team Patay” tarpaulins displayed at San Sebastian Cathedral. After the Commission on Elections ordered their removal, Navarra and the diocese challenged the order before the Supreme Court.
The high court eventually ruled in favor of the diocese, saying Comelec could not curtail its freedom of expression.
Then came Bishop Patricio Buzon.
At the height of the flood control scandal, Buzon led a Holy Rosary Rally in Bacolod on October 11, 2025, drawing nearly 5,000 people who gathered with one central prayer: an end to corruption.
It is against this backdrop that Galbines begins his tenure.
Not an outsider
The new bishop, however, is hardly an outsider to the province.
Born in Sagay City, raised and educated in Bago City, and ordained a priest in Bacolod in 1994, Galbines served as bishop of the Diocese of Kabankalan beginning in 2018.
His return to Bacolod came eight years after Pope Francis sent him to Kabankalan.
“In 2018, Pope Francis sent me to Kabankalan, as a son of Bacolod. But eight years later, Pope Leo returned me to Bacolod, no longer a son, but a father,” Galbines said.
He joked that his ecclesiastical journey had made him something of a “public bus,” moving along the Bacolod-Kabankalan route and back.
The transition also makes Galbines Buzon’s successor in both dioceses.
He credited Buzon for preparing the dioceses for the change, telling his predecessor: “Bishop Pat, you are the planter. I am the harvester.”
Papal Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Charles John Brown led the canonical rite before about 40 bishops, including Manila Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula Jr., and nearly 10,000 Catholic faithful from the 14 towns and cities comprising the Diocese of Bacolod.
Advincula described Galbines as “a grace of God for Bacolod,” saying he would lead with confidence in Jesus and in the people entrusted to him. “Jesus has entrusted Bishop Louie to your love and care. May you support him with your prayers and ministry,” he told Bacolodnons and Negrenses.”
Brown, meanwhile, described the succession from Buzon to Galbines as a beautiful passing of faith from one bishop to another without interruption.
But beyond the ceremony, Galbines inherits something less ceremonial: a diocese whose history has repeatedly placed its bishops at the intersection of faith and public life.
The new chief shepherd has yet to define how he will navigate that terrain.
For human rights defenders and labor advocates, however, the expectation is already clear: they want the new bishop to make the Bacolod Church not merely a place of worship, but once again a place where the oppressed can find a voice.*
