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LEGAZPI CITY — After serving for nine months as first woman governor in Albay, vice mayor-elect Baby Glenda Ong-Bongao took her oath before Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo at the Supreme Court En Banc Session Hall on June 5.
Ong-Bongao, whose term of office as first woman governor of Albay will end on June 30, officially took her oath before the country's top magistrate along with her son, outgoing city councilor John Gio Ong Bongao, who was elected board member of the first district of Albay.
She described her oath-taking as a meaningful event as it was administered by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
"Today, I officially took my oath of office as Vice Mayor of Tabaco City, Albay, in a momentous ceremony administered by no less than Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo of the Supreme Court of the Philippines," Ong-Bongao said in a Facebook post.
Ong-Bongao, who is in Manila to attend the vice governors' league event along with her son, opted to take their oath before Gesmundo after they were not able to attend the mass oath-taking of elected officials in the first district of Albay.
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Bongao, a senior board member of Albay, first assumed as vice governor after the Commission on Elections unseated governor Noel Rosal on Nov. 30, 2022, due to election offense.
Following the political chaos or turn of events, Vice Gov. Edcel Greco "Grex" Lagman took the helm as governor of Albay but was removed for six months following the preventive suspension imposed by the Office of the Ombudsman due to jueteng payola bribery.
When Lagman was about to assume his post as governor of Albay after serving the six months suspension, the Ombudsman imposed the dismissal order against him.
As a result, the Department of the Interior and Local Government in Bicol declared Ong-Bongao as the full-fledged governor from acting governor of Albay.
Gov. Baby Glenda Ong-Bongao, a former broadcast broadcaster of Radio Veritas Legazpi, occupied the post of Lagman following the rule of succession after the Commission on Elections unseated Rosal from the office due to the election offense.
Ong-Bongao is the province's first female vice governor. "Based on the records of the Sanggunian Panlalawigan, I'm the first female Vice Governor of our beloved province who has officially been sworn into the office," she said.
