DAGUPAN CITY—Just call him Father Soc.

Socrates Villegas, a protégé of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, was installed yesterday as the fifth archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan, declaring that the people of Pangasinan are the “salt of the earth” on a mission of social and spiritual renewal.

The 49-year-old Villegas replaced Archbishop Oscar Cruz, an outspoken critic of the Arroyo administration, whose resignation was accepted on Sept. 8 by Pope Benedict XVI.

“We are the salt of the earth, the Lord said to us in the Gospel. Pangasinan was named after “panag-asinan” (where salt is made). We who form the Catholic faithful in Lingayen-Dagupan, living in a province that is named after salt, must truly be a salt for society and salt for the rest of the world,” he said in his homily.

Villegas was installed in a two-hour ceremony at the St. John the Evangelist Cathedral here before a crowd of 3,000 that included the children of the late President Corazon Aquino, a close friend.

‘I have not changed’

He asked his new parishioners to call him “Father Soc.”

“That is how they called me in Bataan,” said the former bishop of Balanga. “That is how they called me in Edsa. I have not changed. I am still Father Soc. Please give me a chance to love you, to serve you.”

Villegas asked the children and youth to have “a life that is clear like crystal salt, pure and fresh and always new.”

“By your young and restive hearts, may your elders find new inspiration. Your mission as Church youth is to inspire and ignite,” he said.

Villegas urged priests to be “courageous, happy givers and generous.”

The Rev. Edward John Adams, apostolic nuncio to the Philippines, handed a crozier—a ceremonial staff hooked at one end like a shepherd’s crook—to Villegas and led him to the bishop’s chair at the right side of the altar.

“Our Holy Father the Pope has chosen you to be the shepherd of the people of the church of Lingayen-Dagupan. With prayerful confidence and trust, I hand you the crozier as a sign of the shepherd’s office,” Adams said.

“I am treading on the footsteps of a great man of the Church, an epic man who is larger than life,” said Villegas of his predecessor.

“Archbishop Oscar Cruz is unique and irreplaceable. He was my first rector at the San Carlos seminary,” he said. “I will only try to continue, using my very limited talents, the great work that he has left behind.”

The Lingayen-Dagupan archdiocese, one of the three Catholic dioceses in Pangasinan, is composed of 28 parishes in 16 towns and cities.

Ma. Elena “Ballsy” Cruz, who was with her brother Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and sisters Viel Dee, Pinky Abellada and Kris Yap, said Pangasinenses were fortunate to have Villegas as archbishop.

“I hope the people are happy to have him. And I hope he will also be happy with his new flock,” Cruz said.

She said her family was close to Villegas, especially when her mother became ill. “He was always around to visit and to say Mass for mom.”