Soldier

In a blink, the decision was made: sacrifice self, save others.

Capt. Aniano Amatong, 31, ordered his co-pilot to bail out of a malfunctioning plane. Capt. James Acosta did and survived.

Amatong then steered his doomed plane away from the populated areas of Paombong, Bulacan and headed for an open pond. It was too late for him to bail out. But the tragedy took no other casualties.

Pure heroism. It has to be called that.

It is usual to joke that the Philippine Air Force is all air and no force. But what it lacked in aviation, it made up for with the quality of its aviators.

Capt. Amatong showed us that. He had skill and he had heart. Described as one of the PAF’s best pilots, he demonstrated at the last moment of his life that even his immense talents were overshadowed by an awesome compassion.

Soldiers are trained to kill. But it takes character to know how to die.

Capt. Amatong deserves every honor we could bestow, every accolade we could afford. The tragedy that took him might be usual; the character he showed dealing with that tragedy is exemplary.

We have, mercifully, gotten rid of the last of those Italian trainer jets we procured. They were sardonically called "widow-makers" because, when they floundered, they took their pilots with them.

All we have now are slow-moving OV-10s, useful for raking the ground to support the infantry in battle. They are not too old and not too much of a disgrace, unlike the Korean War-vintage "freedom fighters" we once had and on which was based the fame of the elite PAF squadron Blue Diamonds. But, as the other day’s tragedy tells us, they do not seem to be supremely maintained.

We might have a ragtag air force, as most fiscally-stricken Third World countries do. But we have a proud air corps.

It is a wonder our pilots evolve into highly skilled professionals despite the deficiency in their equipment. Other countries might laugh at our planes, but they admire our pilots.

They will admire out pilots even more in the wake of Amatong’s heroic feat.

It is a marvel that, given the abundant deficiencies of our military and civil bureaucracies, good professionals like Capt. Amatong still come forward to heed the call to serve. A man of his skill could have opted to have his contract bought out by some wealthy Middle Eastern commercial airline and lived a comfortable life with lesser peril. Many of our military pilots have done that after putting in a few uneventful years in the service.

But here was a good a soldier, determined to serve his country despite having to overcome the limits imposed by scarcity.

It is a pity many of us remember to honor our best soldiers only after we have lost them to calamity. Most of the time, our politicians use them as whipping boys for every imagined failure. We habitually starve our military and yet expect them to accomplish great feats.

Leftist groups, in aid of insurgency, raise a howl each time we decide to procure better gear for our soldiers. The leftist party-list representatives use the legislative vantage point they have acquired cynically exploiting the democratic space in order to impede and harass officers doing their jobs.

If Capt. Amatong is to be elevated into some sort of exemplar, it is for the entire public sector and not just the armed forces. Here was a public servant who did his job the best he could, asking for not much more than what his impoverished government could give. Here was a man who, when the vital moment came, chose not only to live but also to die by the code he was sworn into: to serve and protect the people.

Not all have the good fortune of going as gallantly as Capt. Amatong did. That, of course, will do little to soothe the grief of those who loved him especially the young family he leaves behind.

There is a certain starkness added to this tragedy its timing.

While Capt. Amatong went through his job routinely, some of his colleagues, including some of his classmates at the Academy, were busy making coup threats, intimidating the authority they should obey and taunting their own superiors. They are trying to undermine confidence in the economy that is on the brink of blossoming – the economy on which the fates of their countrymen hang.

One foreign investor was quoted on television dismissing the new round of militarist acoustics as a "cottage industry" in this country. That is correct insight.

Those making coup noises are officers who have damaged their own career prospects. The only way they could recover is by overturning things and taking power for themselves.

By their own desperation, they play into the hands of demagogues and ambitious politicians. They become pawns in a larger political game beyond their means to shape.

To be sure, there is enough reason for all of us to be disenchanted. Reforms are not moving as fast as they ought to be. Corruption remains a disease that saps the life out of our effort to rebuild the nation.

But there are means other than intimidation to accomplish the best we seek for our people. The best means is to build skill and develop capacity in our institutions, the civil as well as the military. It is not individuals who have failed us as much as the weakness of our institutions. But, at the same time, we know that institutions are built on the strength of character of those who man them.

It magnifies the tragedy that men of skill and character like Capt. Amatong are lost in accidents like the one we just saw. We need every good man to turn the tide, to challenge mediocrity with skill, to turn back opportunism with integrity and defeat cowardice with courage.

Those are the virtues diminished by this death.