  A search for the hadronic decays of the $h_{c}$ meson to the final states
$p\bar{p}\pi^{+}\pi^{-}\pi^{0}$, $p\bar{p}\eta$, and $p\bar{p}\pi^0$ via the
process $\psi(3686) \to \pi^{0}{h_c}$ is performed using
$(4.48\pm0.03)\times10^{8}$ $\psi(3686)$ events collected with the BESIII
detector. The decay channel $h_{c}\to p\bar{p}\eta$ is observed for the first
time with a significance greater than $5\sigma$ and a branching fraction of
$\left( {6.41 \pm 1.74 \pm 0.53 \pm 1.00} \right) \times {10^{ -4}}$, where the
uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and that from the branching fraction
of $\psi(3686)\to\pi^{0}h_{c}$. Strong evidence for the decay ${h_c} \to
p\bar{p}{\pi^+}{\pi^-}{\pi^0}$ is found with a significance of $4.9\sigma$ and
a branching fraction of $\left( {3.84 \pm 0.83 \pm0.69} \pm 0.58 \right) \times
{10^{ - 3}}$. The significances include systematic uncertainties. No clear
signal of the decay $h_c\to p\bar{p}\pi^{0}$ is found, and an upper limit of
$6.59\times 10^{-4}$ on its branching fraction is set at the 90% confidence
level.
