The first Redemptorists, belonging to the Irish province, arrived in Opon, Cebu on 30 June 1906, setting up missions in Compostela, San Francisco and on the Camotes Islands.
From 1914 to 1928 further communities were established, the most prominent being: Luzon (where the Redemptorists preached the first mission completely in Tagalog), Lipa,Iloilo, Tacloban and Cagayan de Oro on Mindanao.
In 1928, the Philippines was divided into two vice provinces, each under a different province—the Cebu vice-province responsible for the Visayas and Mindanao under the Irish province; and the Manila vice-province responsible for Luzon under the Australian province, now headquartered at the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran.
The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) had a profound impact on the Redemptorist Congregation and this resulted in them pledging themselves more strongly to the poor and disadvantaged in imitation of St. Alphonsus. When the political and social upheavals came in the 1960s and 1970s the Filipino Redemptorists stood in solidarity with those seeking justice and equality for they were to “…embrace the mission to proclaim by word and action, the Gospel of justice so that the poor’s aspirations can be fully realised in Christ, the source of liberation.”
In 1996, the Cebu vice-province became an independent province, known as the Cebu Province.
The Cebu vice-province in now one of the units of the Redemptorists of Asia and Oceania
Today the Redemptorists Province of Cebu continues to embark on new pastoral initiatives such as care for the street children, Indigenous people, Youth Ministry, Prison apostolates,
Leprosarium, Supporting the Urban poor, Interfaith dialogue and missions abroad.
