Augustinians first landed in the Philippines from Mexico. The Augustinian priest and navigator, Andrés de Urdaneta O.S.A. discovered the sailing route for returning from the Philippines to Mexico in 1565.
Andrés de Urdaneta and four other Augustinians landed at Cebú in the Philippines on 27th April 1565.
They at once began a very successful apostolate. The first houses of the Augustinians were established at Cebú in 1565, and at Manila in 1571.
The Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the Philippines was founded by the Prior General, Tadeo de Perusa O.S.A., on 7th March 1575 and centred on these four Augustinians in the expedition that under Spanish royal patronage had come from Mexico in April 1565.
They had been followed to the Philippines by a regular arrival of additional Augustinians on the Spanish galleons coming from Acapulco, Mexico.
The Province was named after the Most Holy Name of Jesus in honour of the image of the Santo Niño that had been discovered at Cebú in 1565.
These four Augustinians and those that followed them were charged with the evangelisation of the Philippines. One of them, Martin de Rada O.S.A., was the first Provincial, and has also been called the father of evangelisation in the Philippines.
After being the first priests to serve in the Philippines, the Augustinians continued to be foremost in making the area Christian. They built hundreds of churches and towns, blending Spanish and local elements of culture into forms characteristically Filipino even to the present times.
By 1600 this Philippines Province had 50 houses on six Philippine islands. It also established the Hospicio de Santo Tomas de Villanueva in Mexico, where the Philippines-bound Augustinians from Spain awaited a ship across the Pacific to the Philippines.
By 1776 it had 28 houses, mainly in the Philippines, and 165 missionary sub-centres called doctrinas.
According to a report published in March 1898, the Province had under its care 2,377,743 Filipinos, 234 parishes and missions, 22 regions or missionary districts, and a total of 618 Augustinian priests, brothers, novices and professed. Members of the Order had founded over 300 towns and built over 300 churches in the Philippines.
Over the centuries, an estimated 3,000 Augustinians were sent to the Philippines. Most of these Augustinians came from Spain, where especially in the beginning the Spanish Augustinian provinces allowed their members to transfer to the missionary Philippines Province if the foreign missions attracted them.
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