Remember their sacrifices and heroism

The German Chancellor, Otto von Bismark, once said that leadership is not just a job. One becomes the spokesman of a cause because he speaks and justifies the cause with a vision, a sense of majesty, even a touch of poetry. But being all too human, he may make mistakes but as long as he is in good faith, he deserves the tolerance for the imperfect for, more often than not, he is not alone in the decision making process.

We all know that there is no perfect President. Never has there been one and never will there be one. Ask the Cardinals and they will also agree that there is no perfect Pope. Yes, we can cite Presidents and Popes who are generally held in high regard and those held in low regard. And if we go back to history, we’ll even be opening a can of worms of graft, corruption, crimes, deserving of the highest penalty of perpetual disqualification.

How do we rate President Aquino? Unlike the rest of our politicians, he is the only one whose hands were not in the cookie jar. Just read the cases against Senators, Congressmen and high government officials charged with graft and corruption of funds under their direct supervision and control. Yet, the critics abound, targeting Aquino and undermining his popularity polls for breaking the chain of command forgetting that he acted in good faith ultimately relying on the advises of his military subordinates in a military operation and without any personal benefit accruing to himself.

Then, we simply ignore that we have basically a civilian government – not a militarized one which is not in a state of war nor in a state of national emergency. We do not care whether or not there was bad faith on his part in the performance of duties.

We simply hold him liable because the military operation though successful resulted in the death of 44 soldiers. But I have always thought that in the field of battle, a soldier’s duty was not to reason why but simply to do or die. That’s how Tennyson described the Charge of the Light Brigade and how Florence Nightingale did her nursing job after the battle. And wasn’t Mamasapano a decisive battle for war or peace? And wasn’t it also a testing point for MILF and the ensuing debates now ongoing in Congress on BBL? We all feel for the families of the soldiers who died. But let’s not waste their blood and indulge in petty politics. Instead, we should “honor the charge they made” and boldly harvest the peace they sacrificed for so that their glory will never die.

That is why Bismark begged his country for tolerance of the imperfect commands all done in good faith.