Mater Dolorosa Parish (MDP) was issued a decree establishing it as a new parish in Fort Bonifacio, Makati on September 8, 1987 by His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin, D.D.  MDP was initially comprised by five (5) barangays, namely, Cembo, East Rembo, West Rembo, Comembo and Pembo and pastored by the Religious Tertiary Capuchins of Our Lady of Sorrows or known as Amigonian Fathers and Brothers.  Their mission is to search for children who are lost in a world of poverty, negligence, ignorance and drug dependence.


The first Amigonian Religious Fathers and Brothers that were sent to the Philippine mission were supposed to fulfill the vision and spiritual legacy of the congregation’s founder, Venerable Fr. Luis Amigo.  However, the Lord has other plans for these missionaries and so their zeal in pursuit of their mission led them to pastor a parish.  Their congregation was appointed to take care of the spiritual needs of the faithful in the enlisted men’s barrios in Fort Bonifacio.  Most of the families in these areas are families of enlisted military men who came from different regions of the country and settled in the areas allocated for them by the government.

The first MDP parish priest was Rev. Fr. Donato Gatto, T.C. installed on September 17, 1987 followed by Rev. Fr. Francisco Javier Cabezas, T.C. who was appointed Acting Parish Priest on April 2, 1991 due to Fr. Donato’s failure to return to the country following his vacation due to illness. Following the years from 1991, each barangay originally comprising MDP was granted their separate parishes after having been rendered impossible for a single parish priest to minister to the spiritual needs of all parishioners from the five (5) barangays.  Finally, on September 1, 1992, East Rembo and Comembo were left to comprise the new territorial limits of MDP by a revised decree of the parish issued by His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin.


Simultaneous with the construction of the parish building was the spiritual building of the parishioners of the two barangays as one parish.  In 1994, in preparation for the celebration of the World Youth Day, MDP conducted a series of Youth Formation seminars to prepare the youth spiritually for their participation in the programs and events for the said celebration come January 1995.  In that same year (of 1995), Fr. Javier and the lay leaders gathered to prepare the five-year pastoral plan focusing on the establishment of the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) in fourteen (14) mission areas spread out in barangay East Rembo and Comembo.


Building the spirituality of parishioners is foremost, a difficult task to accomplish. To support the spiritual needs of the lay leaders and workers, a weekly BEC Formation was organized to enhance and provide continued support to the laity. Different ministries and committees likewise were organized and existing ones were strengthened to meet their specific goals and objectives in answer to achieving the church’s mission of evangelization. As the BEC clusters grew in number, the parish kept the BEC program as pro-poor, initiating a scholarship grant to poor students-residents of the sponsoring mission area. Scholars need not excel in terms of grades as long as they can pass their subjects, while their parents must be involved in the BEC prayer meetings. The scholars were required to enroll only in state colleges and universities and were given tuition fees, school supplies and eventually transportation allowance.


Together with the BEC Program, the different ministries and committees were organized and strengthened. These are: Worship, Education, Family Life, Parish Clinic, Finance Committee, Youth Ministry and the MDP Multi-Purpose Cooperative. The first parish evaluation was conducted on February 11-12, 1996 taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the parish as they relate to their Mission-Vision statements.


In year 2000 (the Jubilee Year) the lay leaders and workers with the^{3rd parish} priest, Rev. Fr. Ralf Winterberg, T.C., drew a plan for year 2000 focusing on the intensification of the BEC clusters by mobilizing all ministries to support the BEC Program. It was in this year that the first BEC Convention of the Archdiocese of Manila was hosted by MDP. The convention tackled relevant and significant topics and recommendations that would contribute to the fulfillment of the mission of the BECs in parishes that we were represented. Just as the BEC was being formed fully, year 2000 was also the opportunity for the accreditation and integration of several religious organizations in the parish.


The years that followed under the term of the succeeding parish priests until today saw the emergence of a new and more vibrant parish community.  The creation and addition of other ministries that address the pastoral needs of the community are:  Pastoral Prison Care, Persons with Disabilities, Ecology, Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, Pondo ng Pinoy, Social Communications, Social Services and Development, Ministry of Biblical Apostolate.  There was also the emergence of chapters of existing religious organizations such as the Singles for Christ, Kids for Christ, El Shaddai.


During the term of Br. Jacob Thottappallil, MDP was awarded as the sole recipient (in Southeast Asia) of millions-worth of computers allocated by Ayala Foundation-Intel Technology. The objective of the grant is to educate the youth to becoming IT professionals, particularly in the area of Web Creation, Animation Programming, to name a few. Following the years from the onset of the Jubilee Year (2000), MDP continues to create programs and projects as the laity collaborates with the parish priest and the religious congregation that serves as inspiration in all of its initiatives to benefit the growing number of parishioners. Other than the parishioners benefitting from parish programs and services, the Amigonian Cooperators was also revived since it became inactive in 2003 to address the increasing need for support of the Amigonian mission. Special concern is given to the youth being its major thrust – that is, to ‘redeem the lost sheep’ in consonance with Father Founder, Venerable Fr. Luis Amigo’s motto: “a child redeemed is a generation saved.”