Nolly Camingue Buco

Nolly Camingue Buco was born on November 27, 1963. Wikipedia, citing the Vatican bulletin, gives his birthplace as Baganga, Davao Oriental; the Leyte Samar Daily News profile calls him 'a lowly probinsyano from Southern Leyte', which reads as upbringing and origin framing rather than a birthplace claim, and the dossier gives Baganga with that framing noted. He earned an A.B. in Philosophy at the Sacred Heart Seminary in Palo, Leyte. After graduation he was not recommended for San Carlos Seminary in Cebu, worked as a Development Officer of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in the National Capital Region, based in Tanay, Rizal, where he met Protacio Gungon, the first Bishop of Antipolo, failed the entrance examination for San Carlos Seminary in Makati, and then studied theology for four years at the Immaculate Conception Major Seminary in Guiguinto, Bulacan. He was ordained a priest on October 18, 1993, by Gungon, having been ordained a deacon on March 25, 1993, also by Gungon. He earned a master's degree in dogmatic theology, a licentiate in canon law and a doctorate in canon law from the University of Santo Tomas in 2004, a Doctor of Juridical Science from the San Beda Graduate School of Law, and pursued doctoral studies in anthropology at the University of the Philippines Diliman; the doctorate in anthropology is sometimes reported as completed, but the record supports enrollment, not completion, and the dossier says so. His posts included parish priest of Our Lady of Light in Cainta, Rizal, Judicial Vicar of Antipolo, membership in the Presbyteral Consultors, rector of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage Seminary, Judicial Vicar of the National Tribunal of Appeals of the CBCP, and chairman of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Canon Law. He is the author of Freeing Distressed Couples From Guilt: The Need for State Recognition of the Church's Declaration of Marriage Nullity (2024), with a further book, Shepherding Christ's Faithful, announced. No motto is shipped: Wikipedia alone gives Lex Dei Vitae Lampas for 2018 to 2025 and Nolite Timere from 2025, with a new coat of arms on becoming Catarman ordinary.

In July 2018 he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Antipolo, the first priest of Antipolo to be elevated to the episcopate and the second auxiliary in the diocese's history, and he was consecrated on September 8, 2018. The consecration venue and consecrators appear only on Wikipedia and are not stated in the dossier. On December 8, 2023, he was appointed apostolic administrator of Catarman, simultaneous with the acceptance of Emmanuel Trance's resignation for health reasons; he held that administration concurrently with his Antipolo auxiliary tenure until his appointment as Catarman ordinary. One local report mislabels him auxiliary bishop of Catarman for December 2023; he was administrator, not auxiliary. On October 16, 2024, he was appointed the third Bishop of Catarman; local reports dated October 18 record the local announcement, not the appointment, and October 16 governs. He was installed on January 15, 2025, at Our Lady of the Annunciation Cathedral in Catarman, with Apostolic Nuncio Charles Brown presiding, succeeding Trance, who had held Catarman from 2005 to 2023.

In the window, his public record is diocesan celebration and pastoral leadership, not liturgical governance. He presided over the diocesan Pentecost Vigil and Family Day Mass in May 2026, preaching surrender of fear to the Holy Spirit. The November 2024 culmination of the yearlong Redemptorist BEC Mission in his administrator tenure is credited in its report to Trance and Dorico, not to Buco, and is inherited context only, not his work. No governing act of his own concerning the 1962 Missal was found in any of his three tenures.