Now that President Aquino has posthumously conferred the Quezon Service Cross Award, the country’s highest award, on the late interior secretary Jesse Robredo. perhaps it is time to give Robredo some real rest.
There is no argument Robredo was a good and God-fearing man and that he was an honest and dedicated public servant. But there should also be no argument that, saddled with failings though this country may be, there are others among the living who, like Robredo, deserve some praise.
This being all Robredo this and Robredo that will ultimately cause contradictory feelings even among those who genuinely saw him as a great role model to emulate. Too much sweet praise on the tongue can turn the mouth acidic.
Besides, how much of this is real? Praise and honor, sincerely given, need not be stacked a mile high to convey loftiness nor repeated endlessly to suggest enduring quality. Give it once, shorn of all pretense, and that is all the heart needs.
To keep at it, however, gives rise to the suspicion that, unfortunate though it may seem, some people could be trying to make political capital out of the honest work of one man. That man if alive today would probably cringe at all the hype going his way belatedly.
So please, while all memory of Robredo is still fond and sweet, let us keep it at that. Let us not destroy a good thing by drilling it everyday into our ears as if nothing good remains after he departed.
A silent prayer for Robredo is a far more eloquent testament of respect for the man than a thousand speeches made in front of cameras assembled for the purpose. A single flower offered at his grave puts more color to his life than a thousand plaques carved in his name.
Let us not lionize a man in death beyond how he was treated in life, a treatment that at times took all the decency and dignified strength in him to quell the urge to complain. Those who treated Robredo shabbily cannot pretend to lead the parade in his honor.