Notre Dame of Cotabato


Notre Dame of Cotabato is a Roman Catholic private school in Cotabato City, Philippines that was established in 1948.

History

On 1941, Emile Boldoc of the Oblate Fathers invited the Marist Brothers from the Province of United States to start a mission in Mindanao. The school was already built around 1945 but because of World War II, the planned opening was delayed for a couple of years. After the war, Maurus James Doherty, Herbert Daniel Dumont, Joseph Damian Teston and Peter Leonard Thommen were the four Marist Brothers who arrived in 1948 in Cotabato. On June 21, 1948, the said four Marist Brothers took over the school from the Oblates, thus becoming the first Marist school in the Philippines. The Religious of Virgin Mary Sisters, who had been helping the Oblates in running the school, then took care of the girls' department, while the Brothers has the boys' department, thus giving birth to Notre Dame of Cotabato. In June 1996, the school opened an afternoon shift program for boys and girls. In June 2000, the school started to admit girls to the regular day shift session. Notre Dame of Cotabato is the only Marist School in Cotabato City.