Martin Garcia Alcocer arrived in Manila with 29 other companions in 1863 when he was only 21 years of age. He was born in Guadalajara, Spain, on November 11, 1863. Having finished his studies in the Franciscan convent of Manila, he was ordained and immediately appointed “predicador Conventual” of the community and second Vicar of the Monastery of Santa Clara in Manila.
In obedience to his superiors he went back to Spain in 1870 to fill the position of Master of Novices for six years in the College of Pastrana which graduated many zealous and committed missionaries for the Province of San Gregorio Magno in the Philippines. Before his appointment as bishop on June 7, 1886, he was Vice Rector and Procurator of the College of Pastrana (1876), First Rector of the Convent of Arenas de San Pedro (1878), Rector of the College of Consuegra (1880), Master of Novices for a second time (1882), finally Rector of the College of Pastrana (1885). After his consecration in Madrid by the Apostolic Nuncio Rampolla assisted by the Bishops of Burgos and Lugo, on September 26, 1886, he set sail for the Philippines and was installed immediately in December 11.
While studying the pastoral needs of his vast diocese he embarked on Pastoral Visitation spending a large part of the year away from the episcopal residence. Eloquent testimonies of his pastoral zeal are the spirited pastoral letters which he frequently addressed to his priests and faithful, and the Boletin Eclesiastico which he founded on December 7, 1892 and placed under the direction of the Vicar General Angel Diaz. The bulletin was intended to be the official organ of the bishops to counteract pernicious writings as well as to teach the true doctrine of the Church. However it ceased to be published from March 1898.
He would visit the seminary on free days to spend some recreation with the professors and seminarians by playing billiard or domino with them. He started the construction of a new Cathedral in 1891 with the free assistance of a Military engineer Rafael Quevedo. The new Cathedral was to be 118 meters long and 28-30 meters wide. The construction had to be discontinued on account of the revolution of 1898.
His love for the poor had no limits. He reconstructed the old Hospital of San Jose (later called Asilo de San Jose) which was destroyed by the earthquake of 1887, He also founded a Casa de Socorro which was to take care of the sick and disabled. When the revolution broke out in April 1898 the main commercial street, Escolta, was burned together with the great supply of food for the city. Bishop Alcocer had to take recourse in begging food from the wealthy residents of the City who generously responded to him. The other surrounding provinces in the Visayas also flocked to Cebu for their supply of food. This time the Franciscan Bishop had to request food from as far as Hongkong.
Bishop Alcocer’s love for justice was manifested in very difficult circumstances. To break up the revolutionary uprising in Cebu in April 1898, the Spanish Generals Tejeiro and Montero rounded off and imprisoned persons suspected to foment the revolution. Bishop Alcocer approached personally the Governor to speak in favor of the prisoners. The Bishop tried his best to stop the spilling of blood of both the Spaniards and the revolutionaries.
The last defense of Spain was Zamboanga where the Governor and the officials had retreated the army. They were strongly persuading Bishop Alcocer to leave for Zamboanga because the revolutionaries have started to advance and enter the city. The good Bishop, loyal to his flock, for the sake of humanity and the freedom of those who remained in the City, refused to leave Cebu despite the dangers he as a Spaniard would be facing against the Filipino revolutionaries. December 25, 1898 the Spanish Flag was lowered down at Fort San Pedro amidst tears and sorrows of those present The Governor unable to bring the bishop to safety with him in Zamboanga said that he was leaving Cebu with a broken heart.
As soon as the Spanish ships set sail, Bishop Alcocer sent Fr. Emiliano Mercado and Fr. Ismael Paras for the delicate mission of negotiating with the leaders of the revolutionaries who have occupied the convent of El Pardo, six kilometers from the city. The chivalrous leader Señor Flores answered that he and his men would not take any revenge on anyone in the city and would abide by the request of the Bishop. On the 29th of December 1898 Sr. Flores was proclaimed President of the Province of Cebu and a new order was established not onIy in Cebu but also in other provinces of the Visayas. While awaiting the signing of the Treaty between Spain and the United States, the bishop continued to sacrifice himself for the sake of the people in the diocese and to use his influence in order that no life may be lost in the tense relationship.
On account of the hard line which Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda, O.P. of Manila had taken against the Americans during the Spanish-American War of 1898, on order of the Secretary of State in the Vatican, Bishop Alcocer was given the administration of the Archdiocese of Manila up to October 25, 1903. It was about this time that the Aglipayan Schism occurred and Bishop Alcocer had to pronounce Gregorio Aglipay excommunicated.
Sickness overtook the saintly Prelate who had defended the rights of the Church and of the Clergy with his pen and voice. It became impossible for him to govern the Archdiocese of Manila, the Diocese of Cebu and that of Nueva Segovia at the same time. When he left for China on October 25, 1903 the authority passed on to the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Giovanni Battista Guidi. He left Manila after a very colorful and prolonged “despedida.” Some 500 “carruajes’ and 3000 well-wishers acclaimed him as he departed.
Arrived in Spain after a tour of the Holy Land and a visit to the Holy See, Bishop Alcocer was made Titular Archbishop of De Bosra on July 30, 1904 by Pope Saint Pius X. He was later offered the See of Lerida but he declined preferring the cloistered franciscan silence of the College of Pastrana where he started his colorful priestly ministry and breathed his last after suffering from pulmonary attacks. He died on May 20, 1926. The year before Archbishop Alcocer died Monseñor Jose Ma. Cuenco (later Vicar General of Cebu and then Archbishop of Jaro) had an occasion to visit him in the College of Pastrana. In their conversation the Archbishop recalled with love the Cebuanos whom he regarded as his children.
Archbishop Martin Garcia Alcocer, who for the first time in 1893 consecrated the Diocese of Cebu to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was the last religious and the last Spanish Bishop of Cebu. Monsignor Pablo Singzon, Vicar General, who used to be the Ecclesiastical Governor of the Diocese in the absence of Bishop Alcocer, administered the Diocese until the arrival of the successor.