EDITORIAL - Thank God for the Robredos' sobriety

It is beyond any question that the late DILG secretary Jesse Robredo, who died in a plane crash off Masbate a week ago today, deserves all the love and respect he is getting from a nation mourning the loss of an honest and decent man.

But to even consider burying him in the Libingan ng mga Bayani is to go overboard in whatever it is we are trying to convey with respect to his untimely demise. Even Robredo himself, honest and decent as he was, would have politely rejected the suggestion if only he can.

Perhaps it is a testament to the kind of father he was, and the kind of upbringing he nurtured his family through, that they — his family — did what he would have done, which is to politely decline burial in a place reserved for those lived and died under other measurements.

Robredo knew his place under the sun. And so did his family. And oh how so admirably they comported themselves in these most challenging times in their lives. Despite the weight on their shoulders, they never buckled from what they believe to be true and appropriate.

While the Robredo family must have been flattered no end by the suggestion of a hero’s burial, nobody could have known better than they themselves where their father stood on history’s unforgiving stage.

And that is why, firmly but politely, they insisted that Robredo be buried in the place where he was happiest, in the city that he loved — Naga City. One can almost picture how other families would scramble for the Libingan honor. But not the Robredos. Only they know their Jesse.

They know that Jesse himself does not consider himself a hero, at least not the kind for whom the Libingan ng mga Bayani was intended. They know that not every good, honest and decent man is a hero. They know God did not create heroes, only small imitations of Himself.

The Robredo family has spoken. Let us respect their wishes. Moreover, let us not overdo ourselves. It is enough that we mourn the ending of a life that was worth every minute of its living. Anything beyond what Robredo truly deserved is hypocrisy and would only soil his memory.