By CBCP News

November 21, 2025

Manila, Philippines

Pope Leo XIV on Friday appointed Fr. Samuel Agcaracar of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) congregation as the new bishop of San Jose de Nueva Ecija.

The appointment ends the diocese’s nearly eight-month wait for a new bishop.

Agcaracar, 55, will succeed Bishop Roberto Mallari, who now heads the Diocese of Tarlac.

The bishop-elect is currently rector of the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay City and provincial admonitor of the SVD Philippine Central Province.

Born to a family of farmers in Claveria, Cagayan, Agcaracar first worked as a teacher while serving as a catechist in his home parish of St. Joseph.

He later entered the Society of the Divine Word seminary and studied philosophy at Christ the King Seminary in Quezon City and theology at the Divine Word School of Theology in Tagaytay.

Ordained in 2007, he first served as high school director at the Divine Word College of Calapan in Oriental Mindoro.

He also taught at the Divine Word Seminary and the Divine Word Institute of Mission Studies, both in Tagaytay.

Agcaracar holds a doctorate in missiology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

He is also the founder and executive director of the SVD Laudato Si’ Farm in Tagaytay.

Nueva Ecija has two dioceses: Cabanatuan and San Jose, which oversees parishes in the northern part of the province.

The date of his episcopal ordination and installation as the fifth bishop of San Jose will be announced later.