Pablo Virgilio David

Pablo Virgilio "Ambo" Siongco David (born March 2, 1959) is a Filipino Catholic prelate who has served as Bishop of Kalookan since 2016. He was auxiliary bishop of San Fernando from 2006 to 2015. He has been president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines since 2021. Pope Francis made him a cardinal on December 7, 2024.
He prefers to be known by his nickname "Ambo" or "Apu Ambo", which means "grandfather Ambo".
Pablo Virgilio David was born in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga, on March 2, 1959. He is the 10th of the 13 children of Pedro David and Bienvenida Siongco. One of his siblings is the sociologist and public intellectual Randy David. He determined his vocation early and asked to attend the minor seminary at the age of ten. From 1970 to 1974 he attended Mother of Good Counsel Minor Seminary in San Fernando, Pampanga, for his secondary education. He earned his bachelor's degree in pre-divinity studies from Ateneo de Manila University in 1978, studied for several years at San Jose Seminary in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, and received his master's degree in theology from the Loyola School of Theology in 1984. During his student years he participated in demonstrations against the Marcos dictatorship.
David was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of San Fernando by Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz on March 12, 1983. He worked first for a year as an assistant pastor, where he continued his anti-government political activities. He then became director of the Mother of God Counsel Seminary until 1986. From 1986 to 1991, he studied abroad, earning a licentiate and then a doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of Louvain, a school he chose because of its "progressive" reputation, and he studied at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, where he learned Aramaic to enable him to continue his scholarly work on the Book of Daniel.
Returning to the Philippines, David held various leadership and teaching roles at San Fernando's archdiocesan seminary. In 2002, he became director of the seminary's Theology Department, while continuing to teach Sacred Scripture. Also in 2002, he was elected vice-president of the Association of Catholic Biblical Scholars of the Philippines and vice-president of the Archdiocesan Media Apostolate Networks.
On May 27, 2006, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to be auxiliary bishop of San Fernando and titular bishop of the Guardialfiera. He was consecrated as a bishop by Manila Archbishop Cardinal Gaudencio Borbon Rosales, with San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo as co-consecrators.
In 2008, David was one of five bishops elected by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to attend the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God in October. He also won back control of shrine at Apung Mamacalulu from the private interests that owned the site of the chapel and commercialized it. He made it a site for popular pilgrimages and initiated the celebration of Mass there, which had previously been prohibited.
Pope Francis named David Bishop of Kalookan on October 14, 2015, and David was installed in the Cathedral of San Roque there on January 2, 2016. He also took on the responsibilities of pastor of the cathedral parish.
He has served as a member of the CBCP's Episcopal Commission on Biblical Apostolate, and he was elected to a four-year term as that organization's vice president in December 2017.
David has been a critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. On July 19, 2019, the PNP–Criminal Investigation and Detection Group filed charges against David, fellow bishops Honesto Ongtioco and Socrates Villegas, and members of the opposition for "sedition, cyber libel, libel, estafa, harboring a criminal, and obstruction of justice". The charges were dropped in 2020.
In 2019, the University of Manila awarded him its Buka Palad prize for his service to the poor and his advocacy for fight social justice.
David was elected president of CBCP by its 130 members on July 8, 2021, succeeding former president Archbishop Romulo Valles on December 1, 2021.
In 2023, David was elected as the Asian representative on the 7-member Commission on Information of that year's Synod of Bishops. In 2024, David was elected as the vice president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences at the central committee meeting in Bangkok, succeeding Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith.
On October 6, 2024, Pope Francis announced he planned to make David a cardinal and elevated him in the December 7 consistory. David was named cardinal-priest of Trasfigurazione di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo. He is the tenth Filipino to join the College of Cardinals, the third Filipino made a cardinal by Pope Francis, the first Filipino made a cardinal while not yet an archbishop, and the first cardinal from the Diocese of Kalookan. He is in the rarely seen position of a cardinal who is suffragan to another cardinal, the Archbishop of Manila Jose Advincula. Just as he had refused to use the title "Excellency" which is normally accorded a bishop, as cardinal he said that he was "scandalized" by the use of the title "Eminence" for cardinals and hoped it would be abolished. He has said he expects no new assignment, rather to remain as bishop of Kalookan.
On October 23, 2024, the Synod of Bishops elected David a member of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod.
During a Simbang Gabi homily on December 24, 2024, David criticized Israel's Gaza war, saying that the biblical Israel is different from the State of Israel and that "if the Holy Family were to look for an inn today, they would not stay in Bethlehem but in the Gaza Strip and find a collapsed house in which to give birth to the Son of God".
On January 12, 2025, Pope Francis named him a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
David has authored several works of popular theology.
With his co-editor Nina L.B. Tomen he has created three volumes focused on Angeles City, one on the devotion centered on the statue depicting the burial of Jesus Christ known as Apung Mamacalulu, Apung Mamacalulu: The Santo Entierro of Angeles City; another on popular religion in the old town of Betis there; and one on Holy Rosary Parish Church, Pisamban Maragul: The Living Church of Angeles City, designed to be presented to Pope Francis on his visit to the Philippines in January 2015. David said: "The Pope knows well that many old heritage churches in Europe have practically become dead churches or sheer museums. The book is not just about an old building; it is about a living Church." Its 350 pages included archival documents, memoirs of parisioners, and rare photographs. It concerned the church structure and its furnishings, but also documented nonmaterial expressions of faith that deserve preservation: popular devotions, rites, rituals, traditions, sacred music and other nonmaterial forms of faith.
Also with Tomen, The Gospel of Mercy According to Juan/a (Makati City, Philippines: St. Pauls Philippines, 2016). The Juan/Juana of the title refers to any ordinary person, male or female. A collection of essays by each of the authors, with a co-authored preface.