Remember Bushido?

Before anything else, let us welcome to our city many local government officials coming from our neighboring island province of Bohol, my sano. They are here to attend a seminar for local legislators, which the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Office of the Ombudsman and the Civil Service Commission are holding in appreciable degree of professional cooperation sans bureaucratic rigmarole.

 Many of us do not know much about Bushido, which is believed to be a Japanese code of conduct. To confess, I understand very little about it. This term appears, rather sparsely, in limited paperbacks mostly portraying another exclusively Japanese culture-bound warrior, the samurai. But, I am enchanted by the myth that surrounds it. Of late though, I have heard this has been whispered, in revered tone, among the higher echelons of successful corporations and the more I am enamored.

 Yet, whatever little we know of this rarely discussed societal code, we attach great respect to it. Maybe this respect is mostly mythical, arising, as it does, out of our paucity of information on this subject. Indeed, we believe that Bushido deals with such virtues as loyalty and honor.

 To me, the most emphatic demonstration of this code of conduct was the act of many Japanese military pilots in the Second World War. Sensing that their war effort was on the losing of the equation, the airmen, manning efficient Zero Mitsubishi planes, felt it was honorable to die for their country rather than face defeat. They then aimed their warplanes, loaded with bombs, directly against American warships. (Of course, some succeeded while most were met by seemingly impenetrable volleys from anti aircraft guns). To make sure that they would not eject from their planes, they were literally tied to their seats. They called that suicidal act, a supreme form of sacrifice, Hara-kiri.

 I remember these little known terms Bushido and Hara-kiri when I heard of the apparent suicide of the late former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Angelo Reyes.

 I must profess that what I know of the late general is also as little as I know of these Japanese concepts. In fact, my first glimpse of him was when he turned his back on his commander in chief. As the military leader of our armed forces, he announced that the army was withdrawing its support of then President Joseph Estrada.

 It was perhaps a very hard decision. Betraying the trust of a boss and benefactor necessitated nerves of steel and a heart of stone, to borrow the florid words of the poets. But he probably thought it was the call of the situation. Maybe, he felt it honorable to betray a friend in upholding the higher interest of the country. And so it came to pass that he became the principal factor in the coming to power of a new president then.

 Needless to say, his role in the stand down of Pres. Joseph Estrada assayed into his major functions in the former Pres. Gloria M. Arroyo. His powers, in various departments, seemed supreme, if not absolute. He appeared to be untouchable.

 So, when the general bowed out of office at the end of the term of the president he so well served, he believed his honor was unsullied.

 Then, a bomb, of unimagined kilotons, exploded. A former subordinate (and confessed friend) of the general ignited it in the honorable halls of our legislature. In a yet unsubstantiated expose’ of the lieutenant colonel, he claimed that the general was not of the incorrupt genre. The subordinate alleged that the boss was, somehow, a principal in the deals of the department that benefited him with millions of pesos, product of corruption.

 I surmise that the general believed his honor to be stained. Many, not excluding me, began to entertain the idea that he might not have been clean, after all. Unfortunately for the general, it came when he no longer walked the corridors of power, and powerless to defend himself, he, in the language of Joseph Addison, would rather die a thousand deaths, than wound his honor. The demands of Bushido must have prompted him to pull the trigger of his own hara-kiri. What a fate!

 The tragedy is a lesson for all. It is a learning for everyone to live in honor, not just practice it. Let us have the strength to imbibe the teaching of honesty in all we do that we will not blemish our history with the blood of dishonor.

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