RE: APPLICATION FOR BAR ADMISSION (VICENTE CHING), BM#914, 10/1/1999

Vicente Ching passed the 1998 Bar Exam but was prohibited from taking his oath due to
a “citizenship” issue having been born on April 11, 1964 to a Chinese father and Filipino
mother. Despite, his oath of allegiance and affidavit of citizenship executed in 1999,
Supreme Court denied his motion to take the lawyer’s oath reasoning that, when he was
born in 1964, the governing charter was the 1935 Constitution which required a legitimate
child of a Filipino mother and an alien father to follow the latter’s citizenship, unless
electing Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority. Ching failed to validly
elect Philippine citizenship. The span of 14years that lapsed from the time he reached the
age of majority until he finally expressed his intention to elect Philippine citizenship is
clearly beyond the contemplation of the requiring of electing “upon reaching the age
of majority”.