Moises Magpantay Cuevas
Moises Magpantay Cuevas was born November 25, 1973, in Cuenca, Batangas. He studied philosophy at Pastor Bonus Seminary in Zamboanga City and theology at the Regional Major Seminary of Mindanao in Davao City. His episcopal motto is Virga Tua Consolatio Mea, 'Your rod consoles me' (Psalm 23:4).
He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Zamboanga in 2000. As a priest he served as vicar at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Zamboanga from 2001 to 2003, rector of the Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar, chancellor of the archdiocese from 2003 to 2009, administrator of the archdiocesan pastoral center from 2005 to 2007, parish priest of Santa Maria Parish from 2009 to 2015, and director of the commission on the clergy from 2017. Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop of Zamboanga on March 19, 2020, as titular bishop of Maraguia. He was consecrated and installed on August 24, 2020, with Romulo Tolentino de la Cruz as principal consecrator and Martin Jumoad and Julius Tonel as co-consecrators.
On August 11, 2021, he was appointed apostolic administrator sede plena of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, with all the powers and duties of a diocesan bishop, while Archbishop Romulo de la Cruz recovered from a stroke; he served in that administration until Julius Tonel's installation as archbishop. That administration is recorded here in prose, not as a separate same-see tenure.
Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Vicar of Calapan on June 29, 2023, succeeding Warlito Cajandig, who had been liberated from office in November 2022 for health reasons after a stroke in 2018 and brain surgery; Fr. Nestor Julao Adalia had administered the vicariate in the interim. Cuevas took canonical possession on September 4, 2023, at the bishop's residence in Barangay Salong, and was installed on September 6, 2023, at the Santo Niño Cathedral in Calapan City, with Archbishop Charles John Brown presiding, as the fourth Apostolic Vicar of Calapan, after William Josef Duschak (1951-1973), Simeon O. Valerio (1973-1988), and Cajandig (1989-2022).
Pope Leo XIV elevated the Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan to a diocese on March 25, 2026, retaining the same name and territory as a suffragan of Lipa, and appointed Cuevas, until then vicar apostolic, as its first bishop. The diocese was canonically erected and Cuevas was installed as its first bishop on August 7, 2026, at the Santo Niño Cathedral, with Archbishop Brown presiding, Archbishop Gilbert Garcera of Lipa presenting the crucifix, and bells ringing across the new diocese.
No decree, permission, suppression, expansion, or transfer of the Traditional Latin Mass by Bishop Cuevas, in Zamboanga or in Calapan, was found in the searches listed.
Two items found are not his acts and are not coded: the installation Mass rite at Calapan was conducted in Tagalog, which is not a 1962 Missal act, and the CBCP's collective July 22, 2021 statement supporting Traditionis custodes is a conference act in which he is not named.