LINGAYEN – Despite the appeal of Governor Amado Espino Jr and the provincial board, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus refused to budge from his decision to transfer two Pangasinan school superintendents to “smaller” divisions in the province.

Provincial Adminstrator Rafael Baraan said the Ilocos DepEd regional office served the directive on Thursday assigning Division I Superintendent Alma Ruby Torio to Dagupan effective April 7. She will swap places with Dagupan Supt. Aurora Domingo.

Division II Superintendent Armando Aquino however, will not be transferred anymore as he will be retiring on April 15. He reportedly filed his retirement on that date even if his mandatory retirement is still in July, most probably to evade the transfer order.

Schools Superintendents Alma Ruby Torio of Pangasinan I and Armando Aquino of Pangasinan II were behind the production of the teachers’ guidebooks to be used by schools in the entire province.

Torio and Aquino allegedly failed to inform Lapus about their project, resulting in their reassignment to lower posts. Espino and the provincial board tried to stop the reassignment by asking Lapus through a letter to reconsider his directive and allow the two school heads to stay put. They also appealed to President Arroyo for two’s retention in their present posts.

But Lapus did not consider the appeal.

The rift seems to widen between Lapus and. Espino. after the governor announced that he was declining invitations to be graduation speakers of public schools in the province.

This, after Lapus banned politicians from being guest of honor and speakers of public school graduations this year.

But the governor’s decision was only “to avoid putting school officials and teachers in danger of being punished for defying the order” of Lapus, according to

Espino may have learned his lesson after Lapus ordered the reassignment of two schools superintendents.

A press release from the provincial information office said Espino, while declining offers to become commencement speaker, assured his support to the province’s education sector.

“He did not feel singled out by the directive, but was only respectful of it,” Baraan said.

Espino did not attend the graduation exercises of Bayambang National High School , his Alma Mater, in deference to the DepEd secretary’s directive banning politicians as graduation speaker.

The teacher’s guidebook, the root of the rift, was a brainchild of Aquino. It reportedly won praises from DepEd regional officials and after a year of experiment, was mass-produced with financial support from the provincial government.

Aquino explained that the guidebook was actually a “course-of-study, a lesson plan detailing classroom activities of both teachers and learners.”

Normally, lesson plans are prepared by individual teachers, but these were made into one, uniform guidebook for a more effective and improved result, Aquino added.