San Jose Parish – San Jose, Tacloban City

Originally, San Jose was first called Casiroman, a sitio of Tacloban facing the Pacific side of Leyte. At that time, Tacloban was still a barrio of Basey, Samar. Sometime in 1885, years after Tacloban became a separate town from Basey, a Spanish friar by the name of Fr. Ricardo Suarez gave barrio people an idea of how to protect themselves from the Moro pirates through a barawalte. Thus, in honor of Fr. Suarez’s assistance, the barrio was renamed San Ricardo, in memory of the friar.

In December 1901, the barrio was formally declared as a barrio San Jose in memory of Fr. Jose de la Peña who helped them rebuild the barrio. They also honored Sr. San Jose as their patron saint. Events waved through until the district was devastated by the Japanese occupation forces. Then came 1944 when Leyte gained its liberation from all the havoc that came and went, as history would put it. The image of St. Joseph, the Laborer, was restored from the vehemence that once occupied the land. Just after the liberation, it was brought back to the barrio and with it a fiesta celebrated.

From that time on, spirituality became a communal concern. After the wreckage in war, people longed to build an edifice where they could gather themselves in worship. It was Fr. Almendra, assistant parish priest of Sto. Niño then, who led in the campaign for funds. Everyone struggled to let exist a house of prayer. The people constructed a temporary but strong church building for a time on a borrowed lot. The endeavor furthered when all funds raised were at hand and only did the barrio people of San Jose boast of their kind efforts which bore much fruit.

For a long time, San Jose was under the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help managed by the Redemptorists Fathers. Their pastor would visit the place to say mass on the church which was constructed for the barrio. As such, the Redemptorists were also part in the success of building the church. But since the community area was extending far and wide and since many residents from other places were starting to flock, the Archbishop of Palo, Most Rev. Pedro R. Dean established San Jose as a quasi-parish. It happened last November 15, 1986.

As a quasi-parish, the community of believers is said to be under canonical decree conditions before it becomes a full-pledged parish. One of which is the benevolent support expected from the parishioners in order to let exist the parish efficiently through the years. It was Fr. Moises Apostol who was installed as the pastor of the new quasi-parish.

After a period of time when the parish celebrated its first anniversary, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Palo finally created San Jose as a full-pledged parish. The setting up of the parish was granted through a canonical decree rewarding the community for the support it has given to the church. This was on November 22, 1987, during the pastoral visitation of the Archbishop of Palo.

Fr. Moises Apostol (1986-1995) the new and first parish priest to shepherd the people of St. Joseph Parish observed that religiosity and spirituality was becoming everybody’s concerns. In so short a time, he consulted the church leaders and parishioners immediately spearheaded in the construction of the first, new, and concrete church edifice where people could gather in worship and profess their faith since the old church was too small to accommodate a growing parish.

Intensive fund raising soon started through tele-movie, solicitations, pledges, donations and sponsorships here and abroad. All these had been the sources that initially sustained in the on-going construction of the new church. With the support of the generous and civic-minded people he envisioned again to build the Parish Formation Hall where BECs organized from different Barangays could gather themselves in meetings, seminars and fellowships.