Sympathy for the Emperor

The Colegio del Santo Niño, where I spent the best years of my life (the 60s, what else), will be holding a general alumni homecoming on August 21 at the Basilica del Santo Niño Pilgrim Center.

The day-long affair will start with a motorcade of the different classes from the I.T. Park in Lahug to the school campus. Assembly time at I.T. Park is at 7 a.m. Participants are to wear “I Love CSN” t-shirts which can be bought at the school.

Different activities will be held at the school after the motorcade. A Mass will be celebrated at 4 p.m. to kick off the evening program, starting with dinner, and ending with a dance.

An important part of this year’s alumni homecoming will be the unveiling of the CSN “extension project” or the plan to build a new campus heralded by the return of the high school department as has been the long-time clamor of earlier CSN alumni.

Alumni are enjoined to contact their different classmates and batchmates so they can all participate in the different activities. Or they may visit the official CSN website at www.csn-augustinian.ph or email [email protected] or call 4121920.

For members of my batch, Class ’70, please get in touch with Bo Varquez at 09173254872 or Lynn Lumapas Dublin at 09165623772. For Class ’70, this is our 40th anniversary. Let us not wait for our 50th, or we will be “too old” to enjoy each other’s company, ha ha ha.

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Armed Forces chief General Delfin Bangit prematurely retired yesterday, a sad victim of politics, which has become the number one cottage industry in the country today. He was not supposed to retire until July 2011, when he reaches the compulsory retirement age of 56.

But Bangit was appointed by President Arroyo, the second most unpopular president this country ever had (her enemies say she is the most unpopular, but that is only because she is still around to flog, Marcos having long been dead), and it is hip to undo all that she did.

Retiring early was the honorable thing to do for Bangit after being humiliated by president-elect Noynoy Aquino who tactlessly (it runs in the family of Kris Aquino) declared in public that he would not be reappointed AFP chief.

If Noynoy hated Bangit for being an Arroyo appointee, the least he could have done was to give a little respect to the position the general held by privately telling him it would be to the best interests of everybody if he retired early as there was no way he will be reappointed.

With the election results giving Noynoy a clear mandate, I do not think Bangit would be stupid enough to provoke a confrontation. He would have seen the futility of hanging around if he no longer had the confidence of his commander-in-chief.

 But at least, without the public humiliation, Bangit could have retired with his dignity intact. And that is what all men crave for — to keep their honor. Bangit, nicknamed the Emperor, served his country for 36 years, but apparently this was not well enough for some people.

To be sure, there have been controversies involving Arroyo that her enemies wish to lump Bangit along with. But that is the great tragedy of this sorry country. People no longer respect due process, preferring to swiftly condemn and convict on the basis of suspicion and assumption.

One of the things that rankle the enemies of Arroyo the most about Bangit is his loyalty to the outgoing president. We are probably the only country that would punish loyalty instead of appreciating it.

Yet, even in our perversions we are never consistent. For while we punish one official for his fierce loyalty to our enemies, we exact the same fierceness of loyalty from those we consider our friends. Loyalty therefore doesn’t define character for us, only circumstances do.