- 1938-00-00 —
Felix Maddela became the first Filipino Bahá'í. His first encounter with the Bahá'í Faith was in 1924 when a purchase he made was wrapped in a piece of old newspaper which contained an article by Martha Root about the religion and a picture of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. As the author's address did not appear in the article, it was another 14 years before he encountered more about the religion. In the early spring of 1937, Loulie Albee Mathews arrived in Manila on board the "Franconia." As the boat was to dock for only a few hours, she managed to place a few pamphlets in a college library on the shelf of comparative religions. A few months later, on a visit to Manila from Solano, Nueva Vizcaya, Mr. Maddela came across the literature. This started a series of correspondence with the Bahá'í Publishing Committee of the United States. With Madella so fired up, he immediately taught his family and friends. Shortly before World War II, the Bahá'í's of Solano numbered around fifty. When war broke out all communications ceased. Immediately after the war, contact was re-established thru Alvin Blum, who was attached to the medical unit of the United States Army. Hitch-hiking to Solano, which was in ruins, he located the Maddelas living in impoverished conditions. Of the fifty enrolled Bahá'í's, twenty-five had been killed or were missing. The others had survived by hiding in rice fields for three years.
[WikipediaThe Bahá'í Faith in the Philippines]
- On the 2nd of December 1946, the Local Spiritual Assembly of Sloano was incorporated. At Ridván 1964 the first National Spiritual Assembly was formed and during the Ten Year Crusade Hand of the Cause Dr Rahmatu'lláh Muhájir led the mass conversion with brought the Faith far and wide throughout the islands. [BW19p798]
- Travel teachers that had visited the Philippines were: Jamal Effendi, Mirzá Husayn Tútí, Martha Root and Siegfried Schopflocher. [BW19p798]
- 1964-04-21 — The National Spiritual Assembly of the Philippines was formed with its seat in Manila. [BW14p99]
- 1974-03-00 — The Bahá'í Publishing Trust of the Philippines was established in Manila. [DM318]
- 2008-11-29 — Regional Conferences were held in Antofagasta, Chile, Manila, Philippines and Yaoundé, Cameroon. [BWNS675]
- 2018-10-01 —
The announcement of the translation and publication of the Kitab-i-Aqdas into the Philippines' second most widely spoken language, Cebuano. (Translation into Tagalog was completed in 2003.) This translation was done by Dr Gil Tabucanon and was completed after ten years of effort. Publication was done by the Philippines Baha'i Publishing Trust.-
Among the languages into which the Kitab-i-Aqdas had been translated, in addition to English, were Albanian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Marathi, Norwegian, Oriya, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
[BWNS1294; BWNS646]
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