Smorgasbord
Liway M. Yparraguirre

GEN. Leopoldo N. Bataoil was in Lingayen, his hometown, last Friday.
 
He was guest speaker at the Pangasinan National High School 98th Commencement Exercises (he belongs to class ‘70)and at PSU Lingayen’s Baccalaureate Mass and Recognition Program.
 
At the high school graduation program, he inspired the graduates by relating his struggles while in school, that these molded him to become where he is now, a successful son of barangay Libsong.
 

Gen. Bataoil has been designated director (equivalent to regional director) of the Northern Police District or NPD which is under the National Capital Region Police Office.NPD covers CAMANAVA or Caloocan City, Malavon, Navotas and Valenzuela City.
 
After serving as PNP Spokesperson for more than three years and under three chief PNPs (Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane, Gen. Edgar Aglipay and Gen. Arturo C. Lomibao), he said he is back in the field where he once belonged.
 
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It was our first time to hear him talk about his experiences from hazing. He said those experiences almost shattered his father’s dreams and that of his own.
 
Now, he is an advocate against hazing, be it in schools or academies, in fraternities.
 
His word of wisdom to the young students:
 
“Exercise positive leadership rather than the use of force to compel obedience. I strongly believe that through positive leadership approach, role modeling, exercising leadership by example, we will be able to earn the respect and obedience, and this is more fulfilling than getting obedience because of fear or force. There are other ways of correcting deficiencies of an individual. But to enforce maltreatment or hazing is illegal and must not be tolerated.”
 
Bataoil said first experienced hazing when he was a cadet at the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy.
As first year cadets, they were subjected to initiations, he revealed. The “nightmare initiation” happened after his upper class men learned he passed the PMA exam. As a result, he suffered broken ribs. His father who was to fetch him at the marine academy and accompany him to PMA found him instead in the hospital.

“When I became an upper class man at the PMA, I was very strict, I was very particular in discipline, and that I had also the tendency to commit hazing,” he said. He was dismissed from the academy because of a hazing incident but was reinstated later because of his relentless appeal for reconsideration.
 
“Had I not been accepted back at PMA (because I was also a victim), it could have shattered my dreams because I really wanted to be a PMA cadet, I wanted to be a professional soldier and police officer, I dreamt of becoming a general. If I was dismissed because of my involvement in a hazing case, I would not have been what I am now,” he remarked.