School dropout fulfills dream to be a lawyer

Who would think that one of the 1,893 people who passed the 2006 Bar Examinations was once a high school dropout?

PO3 Juan Alpuerto, 38, a member of the Regional Tactical Operation Center of the regional police office, fulfilled his dreams to be a lawyer after passing the bar examinations in September last year.

Alpuerto admitted to The Freeman that poverty had forced him to drop out of high school, adding that he only finished freshman in high school in Dumanjug town.

Having a father who was a security guard with a meager salary could not get Alpuerto and his siblings to school. Their mother was just a plain housewife, said Alpuerto, the fourth of the six siblings in the family.

But during the '80s when he was given a chance to take the "placement examination" offered by then Ministry of Education Culture and Sports (MECS) for those out of school youths wanting to study in college, he did not hesitate. He took the test along with others at the Abellana National High School and got a passing mark.

He then took up associate in marine engineering at the Universtiy of the Visayas and at the same time worked as a security guard of Cebu Plaza Hotel, now the Marco Polo Hotel in Lahug.

He joined the police force in 1996 because it only required the applicants 72 units in college back then. After getting hired, he continued his studies and enrolled in computer science at UV.

In spite of getting married in 1996, he and his wife did not have children which gave him enough time to enrol in the UV the College of Law.

According to him, he is the kind of person who do not just sit and wait for luck to come, believing that one must work hard for his dreams to realize.

In March last year, Alpuerto finished his law studies and went on to take the review, and then took the succeeding bar examinations.

A native of barangay Siwa in Dumanjug town, Alpuerto thanked his wife, parents and siblings for their moral support, admitting that few days prior to the release of the result, he suffered countless sleepless nights.

When he got the initial report that he passed the bar examinations through a text message from a friend, he initially refused to believe because he has been receiving false information of the result.

Not until he saw his name in the newspapers that he finally believed that he indeed passed the exams.

"Primero wala ko motuo sa text sa akong kauban pero sa second time, ang akong kaubang polis nga si PO2 Bucanegra mitawag sa ako sa telepono nga nakapasar daw ko," Alpuerto said.

Alpuerto said he wanted to become a lawyer because he believed this could help him a lot in the law enforcerment.

"Siguro dili lang akoy gadamgo nga ma-abogado, siguro kadaghanan sad sa mga kauban nakong polis kay dako man ni og matabang sa among trabaho, ako lang gi-prove sa kaugalingon nako kung asa ko kutob, kung unsay akong mahimo bisan sa kapobrehon," he said. - Edwin Ian Melecio/LPM