Bienvenido Q. Baisas, O.F.M.

Bienvenido Q. Baisas, O.F.M., is a friar of the Franciscan Custody of Saint Anthony Padua in the Southern Philippines. After earning his Licentiate in Sacred Theology in 1969 at the Pontifical University of Santo Tomás in Manila, he was sent abroad for biblical studies, doing Hebraicum at the Westfälische Universität in Münster, Germany, during the Winter Semester of 1969–1970. He then began his studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in February 1970 and obtained the degree of Licentiate in Sacred Scriptures two years later in February 1972. Thereafter, he spent eight months at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, Israel. Returning to the Philippines in October 1972 after martial law had been declared, he was assigned to teach the biblical languages Hebrew and New Testament Greek at Our Lady of the Angels Seminary (OLAS) in Quezon City while teaching Biblical History at Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay City and Judaism at OLAS and serving also as formator at the latter. From 1979 onward, he was entrusted with administrative and mission work, whether in the Philippines (among the Agtas of the Sierra Madre) or abroad (Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Israel).