Thanksgiving Traditional Mass of Bishop Camilo Gregorio (pics courtesy of Claire Navarro)

Bishop Camilo Gregorio of Batanes is the first Roman Catholic Bishop in the Philippines in communion with the Holy See, who has officially and publicly celebrated a Low Pontifical Mass assisted by Fr. Michell Joe Zerrudo after the promulgation and as thanksgiving for Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, clarifying that the Tridentine Mass now called the Extraordinary Roman Rite according to the 1962 Missal of Blessed Pope John XXIII, has never been abolished and may still be celebrated by those who wish to have the Mass in that manner yet giving preeminence to the 1970 Missal of Pope Paul VI as the normative liturgy or the Ordinary Roman Rite. The Mass was celebrated at Our Lord of Divine Mercy Parish, Sikatuna, Q.C., at eight in the morning of January 28, 2008. Fr. Zerrudo is Pastor of the said parish.
During recent chats with Msgr. Moises Andrade, the late Rufino Cardinal Santos refused to abandon the Pre-Pauline Rite and disapproved its celebration "ad popolo" even after the reforms of Vatican II. It was only during the 1970 Papal Visit of the late Pope Paul VI that he allowed the Novus Ordo Mass known then as the "People's Mass" in deference to the Pope. Another conversation with well-known Marian visionary Carmelo Cortez who last year attended a seminar on the Extraordinary form of the Roman Rite in the United States shared that the Philippine Church was one of the last to have abandoned the Old Rite in exchange for the New Rite.
It was unfortunate that I was not able to attend this historical event and had no idea that he was planning to celebrate this form of Mass when I met him a few weeks ago at the wake of Dna. Rosario Adriano, mother of liturgical artist, Tony Adriano (who was just recently appointed as Philippine Consul to Rome). It was Bishop Gregorio who celebrated a private Traditional Mass in our house around 1995 and at Santuario de San Jose in Greenhills in the same year. He is a classmate of Benedictine Fr. Pio Lomibao, O.S.B. and encouraged the latter to celebrate the Traditional Mass which he occassionally does. May God bless the good Bishop!