The Augustinian friars, being the first missionaries to be in contact with the (Filipino) Indios forty-four years after Magellan was killed in Cebu, have a handful of materials that narrate their interactions with the natives.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) released its Pastoral Exhortation in 2012 with the subtitle “Looking Forward to Our Five Hundredth,” a pastoral reference to the quincentennial of Christianity’s introduction in the Philippines. The Augustinians participate in the celebration of the faith with the 500 years of Santo Niño’s arrival which is believed to be the image presented by Magellan to Humabon’s consort after the occasion.

Augustinian priest Fray Martin de Rada - one of the five Augustinian friars who accompanied the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Fray Andres de Urdaneta - was instrumental in the Christianization of Cebu, (and later in the Philippines) in 1565 and decades afterwards.

The Order of St. Augustine – originally known as the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine – shed off their hermetic character and transformed themselves into evangelists of what was then called The New World (the Americas, Africa, and Asia) starting from the 16th century.