EDITORIAL - Even they who stand still have a duty to do

Army Private First Class Antonio Cadiente. Airman 2nd Class Gener Laguindan. Navy Petty Officer 3 Edgardo Rodriguez. Police Officer 1 Danilo Maalab. Their names are as forgettable as their ranks are insignificant.

And then one day they were called to perform a duty that proved more daunting than what the job description may have initially suggested. Honor Guards. To most people, it sounded more honorific than a real job. Just stand and don't move. What could be easier than that.

But the person for whom the duty was to be performed was no ordinary president even if she happened to be dead. She was Cory Aquino. And the funeral cortege that brought her to her final resting place took nearly 10 hours to traverse because of the crowds in the way.

Cadiente later said it all for the four of them. The first thing he did after getting off the truck that bore the remains of Cory was to hightail it to the nearest toilet. But that was just the bladder part of it. There must have been more demons when you accompany a "saint."

Think itch, for example, in the most ridiculous of places of the human anatomy. Or the numbness certainly brought on by rigid immobility. And if muscles can fall asleep, there too is the exact reverse involving inappropriate involuntary mischief of muscles awakening in males.

In a word, Cadiente, Laguindan, Rodriguez and Maalab singly and collectively performed their own little heroics that, after the emotional drain of the Cory funeral, can now be truly apppreciated for their sheer awesomeness.

The different armed services to which the four belong have naturally given them the appropriate rewards — medals and promotions. But the great sacrifice they have had to endure and for which they received their just rewards have not made them any less human than before.

Maalab felt pain when a wayward coin flung in the spirit of Filipino death beliefs landed flush on his cheek. Rodriguez did not allow exhaustion to lull him to sleep that night. He stayed up to watch himself on tv in the never-ending replays of the funeral.

In other words, their heroism and their medals will earn them a place, however small, in our nation's history. But that is in the abstract. As ordinary humans, they deserve ordinary human recognition that makes a real difference in simple lives. Cash incentives are in order.