ECP Stories

21/03/2026

Eid Mubarak! Eid Saeed! Greetings to our Muslim brothers and sisters on this festive occasion of Eid-al-Fitr 2026, marking the end of Ramadan. The Bangsamoro Grand M***i has announced that Filpino Muslims will mark Eid’l-al-Fitr today, March 21, 2026, following moon sighting activities conducted in designated areas in the Philippines.

Last December 2025, during one of the Misa de Gallo Masses at the Episcopal Cathedral of St Peter and St. Paul in Cotabato City, a group of Muslim leaders and communities donated breakfast for the worshippers of the Cathedral. This was reciprocated last March 16 when the Diocese of Southern Philippines sponsored an Iftar for Muslim communities. Iftar is the meal taken by Muslims at sundown to break the daily fast during Remadan.

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1)

08/03/2026

03/02/2024

St. Vincent’s Episcopal Church leads the way!

“We strive to safeguard the integrity of creation.” This is the 5th Mark of Mission of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines and the congregation of St. Vincent’s Episcopal Church in Magasuso, Bulo in Tabuk City, is doing its part with concrete results. In October 2023, the congregation, through St. Vincent’s Credit Cooperative, established an Off-Grid Hybrid Type Solar System that now powers the church and runs a 1.5HP submersible pump for a deep-well water system that supplies water to 10 households and the church.
In October 2023, the electric bill of the church covering both lighting and the water pump supplied by the Kalinga Electric Cooperative was Php 1,019.42 or roughly 102 KWH. After solarization, consumption of electricity from the KAELCO grid in November 2023 dropped to 65 KWH costing Php 645.00. The following month, the consumption was 63 KWH costing Php 796.58, for an average reduction of consumption from the grid of 37%.

The solarization project of St. Vincent was established under the Decarbonization Program of the ECP. The cost of the solar system was Php 135,000, which St. Vincent’s Credit Cooperative availed from E-CARE Foundation under its R2G practice. The water tariff previously paid by the household users continues which, together with the savings from the monthly electric bills, will be granted back to E-CARE and passed on to other communities interested to do the same project.

Electric power in the Philippines heavily relies on fossil fuels that result in greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions destructive of the environment. Accordingly, the Philippines’ current energy mix highly favors fossil fuels, with coal, natural gas, and oil, accounting for 73.56% of the country's total electrical energy needs. The country's most heavily used energy source is coal. By establishing the solar system, St. Vincent’s Episcopal Church has reduced by 37% its carbon footprint and looks forward to further reduction in accordance with the ECP’s target of net zero GHG emissions.

14/07/2023

23/05/2023

Og-ogbo is an indigenous practice of sharing resources. It can be an amount of money pooled together by a group which is then successively passed on among the members and often this is the only way by which a participating household can acquire something of higher value that it can hardly afford such as a farm tool, animal, etc. It can also refer to a group working together successively on each other’s farms during planting and harvest seasons.

Og-ogbo is the name of an agricultural cooperative in Bay Norte, Tanglagan in Calanasan municipality, province of Apayao which institutionalizes this indigenous concept of sharing resources. In 2017, the Og-ogbo Farmers Agricultural Cooperative was the recipient of Php 400,000 for the establishment of a community potable water system. This fund was passed on to the said cooperative by Abbot-Capadecio-Turkia Development Association and Maguing Farmers Cooperative under the “Receivers to Givers” practice of the Episcopal CARE (E-CARE) Foundation where a community receiving a fund support use it for developmental purposes and when it is able, it then passes on the fund to other communities under the same approach. The water system of Og-ogbo, which was the first of such kind of project that was done through the “Receivers to Givers” practice, was completed and planned to be inaugurated in 2020 but the ensuing pandemic did not allow this.

The long awaited blessing was done 18 May 2023 in festive ceremonies officiated by The Rt. Rev. Hilary Pasikan, Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Northern Luzon. By this time, Og-ogbo Farmers Agricultural Cooperative has already passed back the full amount of Php 400,000 to E-CARE to be used by other communities for similar initiatives. In thanksgiving for the water system and as part of the inauguration, a ceremonial planting of 20 seedlings was done by the community. This is part of a planned tree-planting in around a hectare of mountainside which the community committed as its contribution to the Anglican Communion Forest, a global initiative of the Anglican Communion for creation care. Also inaugurated was another project of the cooperative which is a solar power system to provide lighting to St. Dunstan Episcopal Church and the office of the cooperative as well as battery charging services to the community. To God be the glory!

12/12/2022

Photos during the Reception of 8 individuals and confirmation of 31 in ECP's new outstaion in Lonoy, Capiz. (Photos from Bishop Moral)

09/12/2022

PRIME BISHOP’S ADDRESS TO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Allow me to again commend our people, lay leaders, clergy and bishops for the great work you have all done for the past almost 4 years of Vision 2028, as presented in our Mission Conference last October. As our Provincial Secretary has noted, unlike our past two successive VMG ventures which started slow and gained momentum only towards the last two minutes, Vision 2028 hit the ground running and the initial years already had some remarkable results which are highlighted in the diocesan reports to this Council. Let’s build on those accomplishments and sustain the momentum as we all work towards a volunteering, welcoming and caring and witnessing Episcopal Church in the Philippines.

Last Wednesday, the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the signing of ECP-IFI Concordat of Full Communion, which coincided with the 90th founding anniversary of St. Andrew’s Theological Seminary. In the past, full communion had seemed a given to many of us since priests of both churches personally know each other, having lived and studied together at SATS, and were actually comfortable to enter one another’s churches. This is no longer the case now with 2 IFI seminaries, and majority of the recent generation of ministers are becoming strangers to one another. SATS and the two IFI seminaries are starting to bridge these gaps, including the possibility of sending Episcopal seminarians to the IFI seminaries where feasible. But it is time that we become more intentional in doing shared ministries and witness and living together in communion not because we just want to be faithful to the Concordat but because it is precisely what our Lord Jesus Christ wants us to do when he said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21)

In the evening of 17th November, we visited Barangay Tapul in Talisay City, one of those hit by super-typhoon Odette in 2021. You may recall that the super-typhoon captured the compassionate hearts and support of the nation as it happened 6 days before Christmas Day. Photos of people in cramped evacuation centers surviving on canned relief goods at Christmas posted in social media still wrench the heart. At that time, our concerned members were asking what the Church was doing as they were then ready to contribute relief provisions. But we held our punches and explained that we shall come in when the spotlight has been turned off and affected communities are left to fend for themselves. Our work in Tapul again proved to us the wisdom of our approach to disaster response which has now become best practice. For in that community, there was nobody else journeying with the Odette-devastated households in their road to recovery. We are now the only external partner working with them. Had we joined the bandwagon of relief giving at the beginning and gave whatever we could share, it may have allowed several households to have a meal or two but we could not have accompanied them in their current aspiration to rise up from the devastation. But since we have taken a different track, it gives us great joy to listen to their stories of re-capitalizing their sari-sari stores, adding up to their backyard hog stocks and reviving their livelihoods such as buying raw materials for their rags-making instead of relying on garments salvaged from the garbage landfill beside the community. All over Talisay City, we are now in partnership with a total of 150 households in six organizations or groups. We have released Php 1.4 million in livelihood assistance to them and in only 5 months, Php 350,000 has already been granted back and passed on to others. Such are the prized upsides of our R2G approach and our Banquet Fund which form the backbone of our support system and on which external partners like the Episcopal Relief and Development and the Anglican Board of Mission can build on.
Tapul is now one of the outstations of St. James the Apostle Episcopal Church. The community is perched on the mountains of Talisay City. Only motorcycles serve as public transport to the place, charging Php 100 per person one way, but our priest in charge, The Rev. Depiah Ngislawan-Omaweng, has found a creative way to save on transport cost by riding on the garbage trucks that regularly ply the route to the garbage landfill.

We were in Talisay for the consecration last 18th November of the rebuilt St. James the Apostle Episcopal Church, which is now a beautiful chapel along Reclamation Highway in Barangay Dumlog. While its core membership consists of Episcopal migrants mostly from the Diocese of Southern Philippines, its current work with Odette-affected communities opens up a lot of opportunities for possible membership expansion as well as for the pursuit of our mission thrust of responding to human needs by a loving service.

While in Talisay, we met with our clergy from Resurrection Church in Ormoc City and the Church of the Good Shepherd in Batan, Aklan and listened to their stories of possible expansion within the Visayas Mission Area. It is projected that by early 2023, these two churches will seek admission as full parishes while St. James will strive for aided parish status. Each of these congregations are looking at 3 possible organized missions by next year, which will necessitate additional clergy. Take note that through E-CARE Foundation, we are working with more than 40 communities in VMA and so a total of six clergy in the region will have their hands full in providing spiritual nurturance to our congregations as well as to such communities. It is because of these exciting possibilities that we plan to convene a Convocation for VMA by mid-2023, in order to start setting up operational structures towards the establishment of a missionary diocese which we are confident to have in 2024. Meanwhile, we will work with the Dioceses of Davao and Central Philippines in order to set up what this Council has already given imprimatur to, a hybrid Commission on Ministry to process the possible ordination of Deacon Mary Jane Japie and Deacon-Intern Rashel Doyayag.

From Talisay City, we travelled with Bishop Ernie Moral to Ormoc City and then to visit our new E-CARE work in Surigao del Norte where we had a Eucharistic celebration with our partners in the area. With Surigao around 10 hours drive to Davao City, it makes sense to explore mission work from Ormoc going south to Surigao which may then make it more desirable to place Surigao under VMA in the medium term.

More frequent and more ferocious disasters continue to devastate lives and livelihoods in our country. Last September, the World Risk Index 2022 ranked the Philippines first in disaster risk among 193 countries worldwide. Everyday we wake up to the threat of death and devastation arising from disasters. Our brothers and sisters from EDSP told us over a month ago that people fleeing from floods in Kosiung, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao sought shelter at our St. Peter and St. Paul Chapel which was on a higher elevation on a mountainside. Suddenly part of the mountain gave way and an avalanche of rocks, soil and water crushed everything in its path including the chapel and resulting in the death of 23 people. This was at the height of super-typhoon Paeng which affected many of our people and congregations in the region. Again, for our part as a national church, we will soon partner with affected communities in rehabilitation work.

All of these disasters are driving us into helplessness and hopelessness. But we just entered the season of Advent and we are again reminded that we, Christians, are a people of hope. Advent refreshes our hope that Christ’s redeeming and sacrificial love has already permeated the world. Christ has shown us that the opposite of danger is not safety. The opposite of danger is love. So, in the midst of all these worsening devastations around us, we must intensify sharing Christ’s love to our families, neighbors, communities and to the world.

And while we are in accompaniment with disaster-devastated communities, we must also strengthen our climate change mitigation or prevention programs. We now know our greenhouse gas emissions courtesy of a survey sponsored by the Joint Learning Institute and World Resources Institute which placed those emissions at around 10,000 tonnes of carbon per year. A more concrete program for emissions reduction is now being worked out but in the meantime, we urge our dioceses and congregations to include in their annual Parochial Report their power consumptions and other data which form the main determinant of our emissions. Also, a study on our carbon offsetting capacity has just been completed and the Climate Stewards, which does worldwide computations of carbon sequestrations, has determined that the trees we planted since 2013 under our Carbon Offset Program have sequestered 32,000 tonnes of carbon. Finally, our consultant on our de-carbonization program reported that construction of solar systems for our offices and institutions will finally start in January 2023. This was delayed because solar companies were initially hesitant to go on a build-operate-transfer scheme for those with less than Php 1 million a year in power consumption. In sum, the programs we are undertaking to mitigate climate change are based on scientifically-established studies and systems.

On top of ecological disturbances, reports say that inflation in the country accelerated to its quickest pace in almost 14 years, and consumer prices rose 7.7% from a year ago. We do not actually need these statistical reports to tell us that prices have gone way up as we are actually experiencing this whenever we buy our essentials. We understand that much of this is driven by the covid-19 pandemic but we also see that economic challenges are worsened by corruption in public funds as well as the greed of certain sectors which want to gain advantage at the expense of the suffering majority. So, as part of our being a witnessing Church, let us remain vigilant and continue to speak up even as we pray for God’s continuing mercy upon our nation.

Let me end by saying that it is because of the worsening price increases that while we are just recovering from our financial losses in the ECP, with our big rental incomes only recently adjusting to a 100% payment, I appealed to our Finance staff to look into the possibility of giving at this time a love gift, which we were not able to give in the past 2 years. I understand our National Finance Officer will give a positive report in this regard.

Thank you very much and, according to my friends from Tamboan, Besao, let us now discuss!

+BRENT H.W. ALAWAS
05 December 2022

08/12/2022

RECEIVE THE KINGDOM OF GOD LIKE A LITTLE CHILD

In the Gospel at the Feast of St. Nicholas, Jesus said. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:14-15)

Biblical scholar William Barclay asks “what is it about a child that Jesus liked and valued so much” which we need to have in order to receive the kingdom of God? He replies, “there is the child’s humility, trust, obedience, and a short memory that does not bear grudges or nourishes bitterness.” While deploring its horrible impact on lives and livelihoods, the pandemic was a re-set the button for humanity’s re-embrace of these qualities of a child. Among others, the pandemic compelled us to look at the beauty of this world that we are recklessly damaging as well as the goodness of every person deserving of our love.

These were among the points of reflection at the service for the blessing of a community training center at the Church of Good Shepherd in Batan, Aklan on 06 December 2022. Joining the local congregation at the service officiated by EDCP Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Rex B. Reyes, Jr., were members of the ECP Executive Council which held this year’s last meeting the day before in nearby Boracay Island. It was an opportunity for the Council members to celebrate with partner communities the latter’s re-setting of the button which started pre-pandemic all the way back to 2013 when killer storm Yolanda turned their homes into an almost complete wasteland.

A few months before the killer storm, the Executive council resolved to adopt the asset-based community and church development approach (ABCD) as well as the Receivers-to-Givers practice as a way of life in the ECP. The aftermath of the killer storm then put this resolve to test. How can the ECP talk to people about relying on own resources and assets and passing on gifts to others when they have heavily lost lives and livelihoods and had almost nothing? Despite the seeming insensitivity of the question, the ECP leadership decided that it must bite the bullet as it can no longer go back to that time when developmental thrusts depended upon the grace of external partners. Explaining this resolve and expecting an understandable vehement rejection, it was a pleasant shock when these communities, who have never heard of the Episcopal Church in the past, not just accepted but actually fully embraced the ABCD approach and R2G practice. The rest is history. Out of the ruins of Yolanda at Sabang Bao in Ormoc City, a housing village was established – with both the cost of the land and part of the houses later granted back and passed on by the homeowners to others. (The bulk of the pass-on went to a number of communities, the latest of which were the earthquake victims of Makilala, North Cotabato who also established a similar housing village of their own.) In the midst of this housing village rose Resurrection Episcopal Church, built entirely upon the contributions of partner communities in Leyte. From day one up to this time, the operational costs of the congregation, including the salaries and benefits of the priest in charge, were paid for by the same communities at no cost to the diocese or to the national Church.

This was exactly the same course adopted by partner communities in Aklan who similarly suffered massive devastation from Yolanda. Through ABCD and R2G, livelihood projects were done by several communities, now totaling 12, and out of these efforts to respond to human needs by a loving service, the Church of the Good Shepherd was born, with its beautiful chapel constructed out of the love and support of these communities. Similarly, congregational costs were fully assumed by the latter.

Fast-forward to 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic turned the world upside down. Among the communities in Aklan, the re-setting of the button to what are truly important intensified with communities surviving difficult times by looking at the beauty of creation and the goodness of humanity. Farming communities who had rice gave some to fishing villages who had fish and vice versa, with exchanges not based on commercial measures but purely on love and the desire to share with others. With lockdowns preventing people from doing their usual occupations, skills on various crafts were shared so that more people can do buri bags-making, shellcrafts, vine plates and other home-based economic activities that brought food on their tables. Soon, the ECP’s Banquet Fund, augmented by support from Episcopal Relief and Development, Anglican Board of Mission and Bread for the World, enabled 100 households (on top of the 12 partner communities) to start or re-establish livelihoods. All these were being done within the spiral of receiving, giving back and passing on.

It was this pandemic coping efforts of the partner communities of Aklan which inspired the Anglican Communion Fund to also share what it can in order to be a part of the great story. The 10,000 pounds that it contributed was augmented by the National Church to put up the community training center to provide a wider venue for livelihood skills training that is one of the ECP’s best practices in disaster preparedness. Continuous inventory of resources and sharing of skills and knowledge of crafts have resulted in prized assets and capacities in times of disaster when people are prevented from doing their usual occupations. The center also provides the venue for fellowship, community building and spiritual nurture. It is now a monument to the peoples’ embrace of Christ’s teaching to receive the kingdom of God as a little child.

That preceding Sunday, the Prime Bishop, The Most Rev. Brent H.W. Alawas, and EDSP Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Ernie M. Moral, received 2 and confirmed 6 at the Church of the Good Shepherd and then received 8 and confirmed 31 in Lonoy Preaching Station in neighboring Capiz.

The blessing service and visit of Executive Council in Aklan were joyfully capped by the Church of the Good Shepherd’s expression of readiness to seek admission as a full fledge parish at the EDCP Convention in 2023.

05/08/2022

Rebecca Malaga of Baguio City is a partner of the E-CARE Foundation.