Rizal cops shun vices briefly to help kids

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—Breaking bad habits and turning them into opportunities to help were how Inspector Lisa Reyes sold the idea of a school supply drive to her colleagues.

Reyes, chief of the Rizal police community relations office, said one police official promised to sacrifice a pack of cigarettes for the day and donate the money instead.

“I asked him how much a pack costs now. He said, ‘around P70.’ I thought that will do,” Reyes said.

Small efforts, when put together, could make a difference, Reyes said. After passing the hat around the camp, she said they were able to raise P15,000 in time for the school opening.

Noble purpose

The money was used to buy school supplies—pad paper, pencils and plastic envelopes—which were distributed to 280 Grade 1 pupils in a remote area in Antipolo City on Tuesday. They called the project, “Isang Pulis, Isang Lapis.”

“It was Lisa’s (Reyes) idea, actually. I just advised everyone to sacrifice a pack of cigarettes or skip a bottle of beer for the night so they could have money to donate for the project. It would be good for their health, anyway,” said Rizal police director Senior Supt. Rolando Anduyan.

The beneficiaries are pupils from Inuman Elementary School, a public school in Barangay Inarawan. Stories have it that the school got its name from the natural water source in the village.

“The policemen jested about giving up on beer but giving their money away to an ‘inuman’ (a drinking binge),” Reyes said.

Girl ‘balut’

Anduyan, in a phone interview, said the project was inspired by the 11-year-old child they came to call “girl balut,” who frequented the police camp in Taytay every afternoon last summer.

“I always bought balut (fertilized duck egg) from her but it was just last Sunday when we got a chance to talk. I was surprised when she broke down in tears when I asked how she was doing for the school opening,” Reyes said.

The child was sixth in a brood of 11, Reyes learned. The child’s parents, also balut vendors in Taytay, just told their daughter they could not afford the eight notebooks she needed for school.

Reyes, a 41-year-old mother of three, said she was moved seeing the child carry a heavy basket of balut so she could have money to buy school supplies.

During the school supply distribution, Anduyan mentioned the child’s story.

Anduyan said they hoped the story could make children realize how fortunate they are to be in school.

Reyes said she could not really force her colleagues to quit their vices, but hoped they would be inspired by the balut vendor’s story.