Rafael Tambaoan Cruz
Rafael Tambaoan Cruz was born March 12, 1960, in Mapandan, Pangasinan. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan in 1985 — September 8, 1985, per the installation report — and served as parish priest of Saint Ildephonse in Malasiqui, Pangasinan, and as vicar forane.
Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Baguio on June 20, 2024, succeeding Victor Bendico, who had been named Archbishop of Capiz in May 2023. He received episcopal consecration on September 7, 2024, at Saint John the Evangelist Cathedral in Dagupan City, with Archbishop Socrates Villegas as principal consecrator, and was installed as the third Bishop of Baguio on September 17, 2024, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Atonement, with Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown presiding.
A Traditional Latin Mass Society operates in the Diocese of Baguio.
No decree, permission, suppression, expansion, or transfer of the Traditional Latin Mass by Bishop Cruz was found in the searches listed. The society's continued celebrations are not coded as an act of his: no permission is inferred from the absence of a decree, and no restriction is inferred from silence.
Two further claims - one about the society's published schedule, one about its chaplain holding a diocesan office - were drafted here and removed on review, 28 October 2026. The only source for either was a scraped business-listing aggregator and neither could be corroborated. Both would be settled by the society's own page if it were archived.