TAGBILARAN CITY — Bohol has high hopes that protection of its centuries old churches will now become formalized as the Diocese of Tagbilaran earns an authority with a degree of Master in Cultural Heritage.

Boholano priest and cultural worker Fr. Milan Ted D. Torralba garnered a summa cum laude for his Masteral thesis entitled "Proposed Institutional Plan for the Church Museums of the Diocese of Tagbilaran, Bohol: Towards a Normative Pastoral Governance System", earning a grade of 16/16
He had also earlier graduated magna cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila.

A graduate of the same university where he obtained his degrees in philosophy (PhB, AB Philosophy, PhL), sacred theology (STB) and canon law (JCB, JCL), Fr. Ted, as he is known sits as the executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Permanent Committee for the Cultural Heritage of the Church since 1996.

He also represents the Committee in the National Committee on Monuments and Sites (NCMS) of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

He headed the country delegation to the ASEAN cultural heritage experts' meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam (January 1999), and was country delegate to the Hispano-Pacific international conference on cultural heritage in Madrid, Spain (November 1999).

In June 2002, the CBCP and the NCCA sent him on a special mission to the Holy See to initiate the preparations leading to the drafting of the bilateral international accord on the care of the cultural heritage of the Church in the Philippines between the Holy See and the Republic of the Philippines that was signed in 2007 and ratified in 2008.

Father Torralba served a full-term in the Apostolic Nunciature in the Philippines (Embassy of the Holy See) as secretary of the Papal Nuncios, in 2005-2008.

In 2008, he curated the exhibit "Kísame: Visions of Heaven on Earth," an exhibition of photographs of ceiling paintings from Bohol colonial churches, at the Ayala Museum.

Authoring a number of articles in books and periodicals, he presently edits Pintacasi, the journal devoted to the study of the cultural heritage of the Catholic Church in the Philippines.

As a Boholano, he also sat in the Bohol Provincial Tourism Council (1999-2005), and chaired its Planning and Product Development Committee.

While also a member of the Bohol Provincial Development Council (1998-2000), he was elected the founding chair of the Bohol Arts and Cultural Heritage Council (2002-2005).