Bartolome Gaspar Santos Jr.
Bartolome Gaspar Santos Jr. was born December 1, 1967, in Santa Maria, Bulacan, in the Diocese of Malolos. He attended the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary in Malolos, studied philosophy and theology at the University of Santo Tomas Ecclesiastical Faculties in Manila, and earned a licentiate in biblical theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1999. A CBCP News republication misprints the licentiate year as 2009; the 1999 date follows the RVA profile and the Vatican appointment notice.
He was ordained a priest for Malolos on August 27, 1992; no ordaining bishop is named in the sources. His posts included vicar at San Pascual Baylon, Obando (1992-1994); vicar at San Isidro Labrador, Pulilan (1994-1995); spiritual director and professor at the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary (1995-1996, then 1999-2005); rector of the same seminary (2005-2009); Episcopal Vicar for Religious (2005-2013); rector and moderator of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Valenzuela City from 2009 (parish priest from 2010); and Vicar General of Malolos from 2013 until his episcopal ordination. His motto is Dives in Misericordia et Caritate Dei (“Rich in mercy and love of God”), from Ephesians 2:4, the verse of his licentiate thesis.
Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Iba on February 17, 2018. He was ordained a bishop on April 30, 2018, at the Malolos Cathedral, with Cardinal Tagle as principal consecrator and homilist and Archbishop Florentino Lavarias and Bishop Jose Oliveros as co-consecrators; he chose the date for the memorial of Pope St. Pius V. He was installed as the fifth Bishop of Iba on May 25, 2018, at the St. Augustine Cathedral in Iba, with Lavarias installing him, Nuncio Caccia and Cardinal Tagle being in Rome; he chose the date for the feast of St. Gregory the Great, namesake of the Gregorian University. Iba had been without a bishop for almost four years, with Fr. Daniel O. Presto as diocesan administrator; Presto, later Bishop of San Fernando de La Union, served Iba as a priest, not as a bishop. A report’s claim that Santos “took up his doctorate in the Roman college” conflicts with the licentiate record and is not repeated.
No decree, permission, suppression, expansion, or transfer of the Traditional Latin Mass by Bishop Santos in Iba was found in the searches listed.
His public record as bishop, from May 2018, is thin in the sources: the one opened address is the 2024 NASAGA speech, and no Iba-specific pastoral letter, decree, or diocesan act surfaced in the searches listed.