Dagupan officials’ oath-taking questioned

DAGUPAN CITY — The oath- taking of newly-elected officials here led by Mayor Benjamin Lim has stirred legal questions as the oaths were administered by a fourth-year high school student during a program at the City Museum yesterday witnessed by hundreds of Dagupeños.

The oath-taking marking the start of the three-year administration of the new city officials included the turn-over of the mantle from outgoing Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr. who ruled this city for nine years, to Lim.

While a judge was expected to administer their oaths of office, people were surprised when Diana Austria, a 16-year-old senior of the Dagupan City National High School, wearing her school uniform, stood in front of the crowd, called the new city officials one by one, who raised their right hands and repeated after her, as she read their oaths of office written in Filipino.

She then shook their hands individually, the way a person authorized by law like a judge, a prosecutor or a notary public does.

She said she was told by her teacher that as president of the Student Government Organization, she would administer the oaths office of the newly-elected city officials.

But from start to finish, nowhere in the program was it mentioned that the oath-taking was merely ceremonial, as the officials had already taken their simple but official oaths last June 27 before Regional Trial Court Judge Luis Fontanilla.

Lawyer Rodolfo Palma, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (Pangasinan chapter), told The STAR that the new city officials were giving a bad and erroneous impression that it is okay to take their oath of office before a person not authorized by law.

"The audience was made to believe that what happened yesterday was a real oath-taking. It would have been different if it was mentioned in the program that it was just ceremonial," Palma said.

"That’s a bad precedent," he added.

He said that although admittedly the new city officials have taken their official oath before a judge, the public should have been informed about it during the program.

However, Councilor Teofilo Guadiz III, a lawyer, said that what they did was "just for public consumption." — Eva de Leon