TACLOBAN CITY– The long-time regional information officer of the Police Regional Office 8, Lt. Col. Ma. Bella Rentuaya, has retired from the police organization after more than two decades in service.
Rentuaya formally ended her career as a police officer in a simple and subdued retirement ceremony on December 1 held at the regional headquarters of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Palo, Leyte.
Rentuaya served as the regional information officer of the PRO-8 for eight years until her retirement. She was replaced, in an officer-in-charge capacity, by Major Marjorie Manuta.
She entered PNP in 1999 as Police Officer 1 and held various posts with the post as the regional information officer of the PRO-8 as he last assignment.
In her speech during the ceremony, Rentuaya described her 24-year journey as a police personnel as full of challenges and accomplishments.
“In my 24 years, two months and 15 days to be exact (in [police service), I have a lot of blessings to thank God for…to name a few, God has been good to me ever since because God blessed me with excellent staff wherever am assigned she said,” she said.
Rentuaya narrated that in her stint as the information officer of the PRO-8, she was ‘lucky’ to have the ‘best bosses’ who gave their full backing of the initiatives she undertook.
“I also became an instrument of blessing for the PRO-8 personnel because Damayang Otso was launched for PNP and NUP personnel with serious illnesses which to date we have 14 beneficiaries,” she said.
And in the course of her police officer, Rentuaya received some awards and recognitions.
Among these awards she reaped include the 2008 Governor Rogelio J. Espina Galing Mo Awardee as the most outstanding police commissioned officer in Biliran province; chief of police of the best municipal police station in PRO 8, 2008 (municipal level in 2007 and 2008); Sangyaw Awardee of the city government of Tacloban as most outstanding police commissioned officer in Tacloban City in 2010; and in 2007, one of the ten outstanding policewomen in the Philippines.
Rentuaya is a native of Palo, Leyte, and the youngest in a family of two siblings of Bernardino and Lilia Duque.
She is married to Senior Fire Officer III Juan Rentuaya Jr. and a proud mother of two smart and loving children, Beah Marie, a graduating student of Ateneo De Manila University, and John Rey, a freshman at Leyte Normal University.
(LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)
