Julius Sullan Tonel
Julius Sullan Tonel was born August 31, 1956, in Davao City. He studied philosophy at San Francis Xavier Regional Major Seminary of Mindanao (SFX-REMASE) and theology at the University of Santo Tomas Central Seminary, Manila, and earned a licentiate in liturgical theology at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Liturgy (Sant’Anselmo), Rome (1986-1990). He was ordained a priest for Davao on April 12, 1980. His episcopal motto is In Spiritu et Veritate (“In spirit and truth”).
He served as parish vicar and director of the Family Apostolate, as director of the Archdiocesan Liturgical Centre, Davao, as formator, vice-rector, professor, spiritual director, then rector (1997) of the Davao major regional seminary, and as vicar general of Davao and parish priest (2002-2007). He was appointed Bishop-Prelate of Ipil on June 30, 2007, and took possession later in 2007; on the erection of Ipil as a diocese in 2010 he became its first bishop. He was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Zamboanga on April 25, 2023, and installed on August 22, 2023. He served as chairman of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Liturgy (2011-2017) and of the Commission on Healthcare, and as CBCP vice-president from December 1, 2025.
No decree, permission, suppression, expansion, or transfer of the Traditional Latin Mass by Archbishop Tonel, in Ipil or in Zamboanga, was found. His chairmanship of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Liturgy (2011-2017) predates Traditionis Custodes; no liturgy-commission decree or guideline authored by him was found, and the chairmanship is not counted as a diocesan act. The CBCP statement of July 22, 2021, is the conference's collective act, not his.
The interim administration of Zamboanga by Bishop Moises Cuevas before Tonel's installation was Cuevas's, not Tonel's, and is not filed here. The Ipil erection/appointment variant (May 1 versus May 3, 2010) is recorded, not resolved, and does not affect posture or the current tenure.