ECPCF

The Pontificio Collegio Filippino (PCF) depends first, on the Roman Curia’s Congregation for the Clergy (Vatican), and second, on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) through its Episcopal Commission for the Pontificio Collegio Filippino (ECPCF, under the Department of Clergy Formation).

The ECPCF has at most seven Bishop members, including all the Philippine Cardinals as ex officio Members. His Excellency Most Reverend Ruperto C. Santos serves as its Chairman, while its Executive Secretary is always the PCF Rector, who is appointed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy upon recommendation by the CBCP.

The Republic of the Philippines recognizes the CBCP, under which are several Episcopal Commissions. On the other hand, both the Vatican and the Republic of Italy recognize the PCF in Rome.

The ECPCF uses this webpage hosted by the PCF to help fulfill its mandate to look after PCF’s financial viability and stability. Dioceses and funding agencies are unable to raise the amount needed for board and lodging in one of Europe’s most expensive cities (around 12,000.00 US Dollars per year, or 700,000.00 Pesos), hence much of PCF’s operation expenses has to be subsidized. Meanwhile, the Vatican heavily supports mission areas in Africa and Asia, where Catholics form a tiny minority and national economies are weak; it is thus unable to assist the PCF. For those who imagine that the Vatican has infinite budgets and assets: they are much smaller than Harvard, Yale and many other universities in the US!

The ECPCF must thus turn to our fellow Filipinos back home and abroad for support. Your generous donations will help not only individual priests but the whole Church in the Philippines, as our alumni take charge of forming our seminarians back home, that is, our future priests, and other ministries.