Bishop Pedro Centeno Baquero

Bishop Pedro Centeno Baquero, Bishop of Kerema, was born on September 15, 1970, in Manila, in the Philippines. He attended primary and secondary school with the Salesians at Pampanga, and in 1989 he entered the novitiate of the Society of St. John Bosco, making his temporary vows on April 1, 1990. He studied philosophy at Don Bosco College in Canlubang, Laguna, and theology at the Don Bosco Centre for Studies at Parañaque, Manila, and after making his perpetual vows he was ordained a priest on December 8, 1999, at the Marian shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Manila. He served as parish priest at Lariau, in the Diocese of Kerema in Papua New Guinea, from 2000 to 2006, as a councillor of the Salesian community at Lariau from 2000 to 2004, and as director of the Salesian school of Lariau from 2004 to 2006. He was then parish priest at Araimiri, in the same diocese, from 2006 to 2008, and director of the Salesian school there from 2006 to 2010, and director of the technical school of Gabutu at Port Moresby from 2010 to 2013. He was superior delegate of the Salesians in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands from 2014 to 2016, and from 2016 vice-provincial of the new Salesian province of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. On January 20, 2017, he was appointed Bishop of Kerema. He received episcopal ordination on March 25, 2017, at Kerema, with John Ribat as principal consecrator and Kurian Mathew Vayalunkal and Francesco Panfilo as co-consecrators.