Death of a Soldier

There's The Rub : The last word

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

IT'S enough to make me believe my friend Pancho Lara's theory about why people who cannot abide President Gloria Macapagla-Arroyo are dying, the latest of whom is Capt. Rene Jarque: "Yamot na 'yan" ["That's from vexation."]. I can believe it. Truly, TV should issue a warning on news programs, the way the health department issues a warning on cigarette packs, that watching Ms Arroyo can be hazardous to health. She is a vexation to the spirit.

The last time somebody I knew and liked died, who was Raul Roco, I revised my original question about why God made it a point to remove from us only our artists and keep for us only our politicians. That was in reference to the fact that our artists were dying like flies, notably in 2002 and 2004 (I counted around a dozen in the first and around 10 in the second), while our politicians continued to live also like flies. But after Roco died, I had to ask why God made it a point to remove from us only our decent politicians and keep for us our rotten ones.

With Rene Jarque dying on the heels of Roco, I have to revise my question again. Why does God make it a point to remove from us our good politicians and good soldiers and keep for us only our rotten politicians and equally rotten generals?

Outside of the military, not too many people knew Rene Jarque. The one most Filipinos know is his father, Gen. Raymundo Jarque, who shocked Fidel Ramos' government in October 1995 by joining the New People's Army after being the head of the Negros Island Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The elder Jarque despaired of reforms ever happening in the AFP and indeed in government itself -- Ramos had much to do with the corruption in both, something that isn't cured, or forgotten, by Charter change -- he took to the hills and sought his solution there. Alas, he didn't find it there either. He came back to the fold of the law a few years later, but never went back to the fold of lawlessness in the AFP.

The son lived up to the measure of the father. Rene never got past captain for reasons that had nothing to do with lack of ability or integrity. Quite the opposite: He never got past captain because he possessed both in great quantities. He it was who raised the loudest voice to condemn the humongous corruption in the AFP. For which he was excoriated and reviled by his colleagues, though it is hard to use that word to describe them since they were never at par with him. Rene resigned from the military in 1998, a polite way of saying he was forced out of it by ostracism. They had to get him out; his very existence arraigned theirs. His honesty reflected on their venality, his scruples reflected on their unscrupulousness, his willingness to go it alone reflected on their ungodly camaraderie.

No one has changed the face of the military for me personally, one that always took on the aspect of grinning torturer and wreaker of mayhem, more than Rene. He was a good writer, apart from being a good soldier, and used his pen as much as his sword to fight the worst enemy the military ever had, which was itself. But what struck me most was his infinite humility. You could not find anyone, military or civilian, who spoke his truth more gently. He was never righteous, he was just right. You know people speak the truth when they are humble: Truth cannot inhabit a prideful body, or be spewed by a boastful mouth. Rene was a quiet man, which is why his truth now rings more loudly than the pealing of the bells.

My heart goes out to him, I feel a strong kinship with him. I do know a thing or two about what it means to be maligned and kept in the fringes of things for telling your truth. I felt that way when I got deluged by angry letters for expressing a view contrary to George W. Bush's shortly after 9/11, and for expressing a view contrary to Ms Arroyo's for close to four years. I have been since vindicated in both cases. I am certain that Rene will, too, in the cause he has suffered much for. One is tempted to rue that he won't be around to see it. But then, who knows? If you're Christian, you have the certainty of knowing he will be there to reap the accolades. If you're just a plain human being, you have the consolation of knowing his family will.

I didn't know Rene had been forced into exile in Jakarta by financial need. I hadn't seen him for a while. I do know, or suspect, that the greatest pain inflicted on him was not the impoverishment being driven out of the institution he loved caused him, it was the very fact of having to leave the institution he loved. Rene loved the profession, he loved being a soldier. He professed as much every opportunity he got. He was a soldier, he never stopped being a soldier. So at least in the finest tradition of being one, the one that, as he himself put it, had to do with "duty, honor, country." He became the finest example of what a soldier is, or can be, by showing he had become the exception rather than the rule in today's AFP. To the end of his days, he remained duty-bound, honorable and patriotic.

Rene died last Friday at 40. But he lived longer and more fully than most others twice his age. He will be remembered fondly long after his superiors -- in name, not in spirit; they will never be his betters -- will have been forgotten, or reviled. I will not express the hope that the hypocritical crooks from the military and the civilian government who attend his wake get to be hit by lightning where they stand, or sit, lest his wake be attended only by his family and close friends. I will only recall some words he wrote to fellow West Pointers last year to remind them of what they lost, and what they can regain if they would only exert themselves to become a little more like him: a soldier.