By
Mortz C. Ortigoza
MANAOAG
– Being assigned as chief of police (COP) in this police station entails a big
responsibility.
This
pilgrimage town’s station is host to luminaries like the president of the
Republic, senators, congressmen, cabinet members, to name a few.
The
personages come here because of the world’s famous Minore Basilica of Our Lady
of Manaoag where they attend mass.
According
to the newly installed COP Senior Inspector Roderick Ylan Gonzales, while just
barely warming his seat he had already been a host to Senator JV Ejercito Estrada,
Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil (2nd District, Pangasinan), Governor Amado Espino,
Jr., Vice Governor Ferdinand Calimlim, businessman Edward Aguilar, Regional
Director Police Chief Supt. Ericson T. Velasques, Chief Supt. General Diosdado
Valeroso, to name a few, at the world class multi-million pesos two-storey visitor’s
lounge of the police the national government funded to boost up the Philippine
National Police’s station here.
Since
September when he took the reign of the police here from Chief Inspector Edison
Revita, Gonzales expedited the procurements of needed equipments like the two
P15 thousand worth Epson F-20 printers and P16 thousand high resolution
cameras.
He
said he bought them through solicitations with friends when he was just two
weeks in office.
“We
will be using them on the police civil relation, tactical operation centre. We
have been printing a lot of documents here, and we need these equipments badly.
Sira –sira na kasi ang printers namin dito”.
The
other solicited gadgets he chalked up from businessmen's friends are the 15 brand
new hand held two-way radios his police would be using in their patrol and
operation.
Gonzales
said he relied on asking donations because he could not use the P49 thousand a
month Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) because it is only
appropriated, as ordered by higher headquarter, on gasoline, office supplies,
and others of his station.