Ruben Caballero Labajo

Ruben Caballero Labajo was born on September 24, 1966, in Poblacion, Talisay City, Cebu. He studied philosophy and theology at San Carlos Seminary College in Cebu City. He was ordained a priest on June 10, 1994, at the Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe de Cebu; no ordaining bishop is shipped, since Wikipedia alone names Ricardo Vidal and the Dominus Est profile names none. His posts included parish vicar in Mandaue City from 1995 to 1997; parish priest of Santa Fe Parish in Bantayan; moderator of Tabunok Parish in Talisay City from 2007 to 2014; moderator of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Cebu; member of the Personnel Board; Vicar Forane of the Vicariate of the Holy Rosary from 2014 to 2019; member of the Council of Consultors; Episcopal Vicar of the I District; member of the Presbyteral Council; Vicar General; and moderator of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Balamban. His episcopal motto is Humiliter ambulare coram Deo, Latin for 'To walk humbly before God': a PNA-syndicated report of his appointment quotes him saying he would live out his episcopal motto of that wording in his new journey, and the Dominus Est profile closes by echoing 'walk humbly in the presence of God', so the motto ships on that non-Wikipedia confirmation, not on Wikipedia alone.

On June 23, 2022, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Cebu and titular Bishop of Abbir Maius, while serving as Vicar General, and he was ordained a bishop on August 19, 2022, at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, with Archbishop Jose Palma as principal consecrator and Nuncio Charles John Brown and Bishop Dennis Villarojo of Malolos as principal co-consecrators. On October 15, 2024, Pope Francis erected the Diocese of Prosperidad, carved from Butuan to cover Agusan del Sur, and appointed Labajo as its first bishop; Butuan retained Agusan del Norte. He was installed on January 28, 2025, at St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral in Prosperidad, installed by Archbishop Jose Cabantan of Cagayan de Oro, with Nuncio Brown, Archbishop Palma, and Cardinal Jose Advincula present. Prosperidad is the 87th diocese of the Philippines and a suffragan of Cagayan de Oro; per the Butuan social communications ministry it counted 486,251 baptized Catholics in 26 parishes, one quasi-parish, and three mission stations. The MindaNews installation report counts 40 bishops and 200 priests present, while Malaya reports over 30 bishops and about 500,000 Catholics and 60 priests; the dossier uses the MindaNews attendance figure and the Butuan communications ministry's membership figure, and does not blend the two sets. The Daily Post caption misprints the installation date as '(28 January 2024)'; the article body, the dateline, and the October 15, 2024 erection all place it in 2025. The PNA press-conference piece misprints the erection year as 2023; the year is 2024.

In the window, his public record is the founding months of a new diocese, not liturgical governance. At his civic reception and installation he called for church and local-government collaboration for the common good, and at his pre-installation press conference he framed himself as a traveler arriving to begin a new ministry under the Pope's mandate to shepherd Prosperidad. No post-installation pastoral act of his own surfaced in targeted searching for 2025 to 2026. The Cebu traditionalist material in circulation, including Mandaue SSPX-adjacent Masses, never names Labajo and is not coded as his record. No governing act of his own concerning the 1962 Missal was found in either tenure.