SAN CARLOS CITY, Pangasinan – In the hinterlands of La Union where some public schools lack teachers, policemen put away their firearms in order to teach pupils how to read and write.

Police Regional Director Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoiil said he had mobilized policemen to pick up chalks and erasers and teach while at the same time providing security in far-flung municipalities of La Union.

He noticed that some schools in these areas do not have enough teachers to teach the growing number of pupils.

“We noticed that while we have policemen who are graduates of Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education, many schools in the Ilocos region do not have enough teachers to teach pupils,” he confessed.

“Many of these policemen, BSEED graduates are already in the hinterlands, providing security to the people, so we thought of putting them in schools too where there are no teachers,” he said.

Thus, the program called “Pulis ko, teacher ko” where policemen would fit in as teachers in schools, where there are only few teachers while they are doing their duty of maintaining peace and order was born.

“We asked these policemen to teach and in this manner, they will become much closer to the people,” he said.

Bataoil told newsmen                                                        during the “Talakayan sa Isyung Pulis” held here recently, that the “Pulis ko, teacher ko” is being piloted in Bagulin, one of the depressed towns in La Union where an encounter recently happened between government troopers and elements of the communist Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Bayan (RHB).

In that encounter, the top leader of the RHB in the Pangasinan-Zambales area, Domingo Tarectecan and his aide Christopher Balneg, were captured while exploring the possibility of expanding their areas of operations to La Union.

With government troopers in Bagulin is Fr. Gerry Cabillo, a Catholic priest who dedicated himself to reaching out not only to the people of La Union but also in the other parts of the Ilocos region.

Cabillo is also the provincial chairman in La Union of the Volunteers Against Crimes and Corruption (VACC). (PNA)