This Commission began to exist in 1945 as one of the "departments" of the Catholic Welfare Organization, the forerunner of the CBCP, under the name Episcopal
Commission on Education and Religious Instruction (ECERI).Alongside this Commission, the bishops had also set up a Commission on Catechetical Texts which was placed under the leadership of Archbishop Jose Ma. Cuenco
from 1945 to 1950. In 1966 this Commission was integrated into the ECERI.
In 1984, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines approved the establishment of the National Catechetical Office of the Philippines
(NCOP) as a branch of ECERI in charge of its researches and publications.
In 1988, the name of the Commission was changed to Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education (ECCCE). This change was
prompted by the desire to lay greater emphasis on catechesis, one of the two areas of responsibility of the Commission. The second area is education, specially Catholic education.
As the central catechetical agency on
the national level the ECCCE is assisted by the Advisory Council for the Ministry of Catechesis (ACMC) comprised of representatives from various regions and from selected catechetical centers.
The main areas of responsibility of the ECCCE are:
- assisting and serving the dioceses principally as an information center regarding catechetical development;
- supervising the National Catechetical Office of the Philippines;
- conducting studies and making recommendations to the CBCP on specific applications of ecclesiastical decrees affecting Catholic education, and on related policies or legislation of the State;
- coordinating with the various Catholic educaiton associations in the Philippines on matters affecting the promotion and development of Catholic education;
- making studies and recommendations on the promotion of an effective Campus Ministry.
Among the main activities of the ECCCE in the past twenty years were: a national survey on the implementation of the constitutional provision on religious instruction in public schools in 1988; a national survey on
the catechetical situation in the public schools in 1992; the holding of national catechetical conventions in Manila and other cities throughout the country; the convening of the National Catechetical Congress in 1990
and the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Philippine edition) in 1994.
