Magellan-Elcano Studies Center - Partido State University

More pictures from yesterday's launching of the coffee table book, La Ciudad de Nueva Caceres: The Illustrious Origins of the City of Naga (Gerona, 2025).

📷 courtesy: Naga City Culture and Arts FB page

The Postulator General of the Vatican has recently released a list of ten persons from all over the world being considered for pursuing possible canonization to the sainthood. The fourth in the list is the only one from the Philippines, an Augustinian missionary who died in the shores of a village in what is now Batalay in Catanduanes. He was Fray Diego de Herrera, believed to have been among those who survived the shipwreck in April 1576 but was subsequently martyred by the natives.
The Augustinian Order in the Philippines, in coordination with the Diocese of Virac and with the approval of the Postulator General of the Vatican, has constituted, for this purpose, a historical committee composed of three historians; Dr. Chas Navarro of the Ateneo de Manila University ( Ph.D. Universidad de Salamanca), Fr. Dedert Duarte, Chancellor of the Diocese of Capiz (PhD Cand., University of Munster), and myself, from the Partido State University (as designated head).

Our committee works in coordination with Fray Nonoy Arig of the Augustinian Order in San Agustin Church in Intramuros. As the first stage in the process, our committee has been engaged until now in extensive research on 16th century bibliographic and archival sources to establish relevant historical details surrounding his martyrdom.
With the mandate from the Vatican Postulator General “to leave no stone unturned,” the committee, with support from the Augustinian Order, as it proceeds to the remaining months of the research, is determined to undertake farther exhaustive research to other archival repositories including those in the Vatican, Spain and Mexico. For this, we hope to establish links with historians from these places who could provide us “leads” to these sources.