When President Aquino went around the caskets bearing the remains of fallen members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force at Camp Bagong Diwa to distribute medals of honor to surviving relatives, a sweeping sense of quiet anger and resentment was very palpable. Not everyone shook the hand of the president. And there were some who did not take the medals handed to them, prompting the president to put them on top of the caskets himself.
Under normal circumstances, the presence of the commander-in-chief at necrological services brought honor and dignity to the dead and inspired strength and courage on the living to move on with their lives. Nothing of the sort was felt yesterday during the necrological rites. Only a polite silence pervaded the atmosphere. Under normal circumstances, the boss would have been a symbol of solace, a shoulder to cry on, a warm and caring body to hug.
But everything was cold. When the president arrived, after the rites that had been in progress were stopped and the people kept waiting for half an hour, a chill swept through the hall. There was none of the usual buzz that normally attended a president's arrival. And when later he ended his speech, there was only dead silence. Not that applause would have been appropriate. But normally, when a president ends a speech, some form of acknowledgement was always customary.
None ever came. It was as if the president was never there. And why the cold shoulder? Because the presidential presence was deemed too little and too late. After the SAF policemen were killed last Sunday in a mission that is now saddled in controversy and riddled with questions, it took the president three days to come out and say anything. And when the bodies of the slain heroes arrived on Thursday, the commander-in-chief was somewhere else, at a new car plant inauguration.
The president could not bring back the lives of the slain policemen, not even if he attended to each and every task that was required of him as the nation's leader. But it is very important to the nation, and to the families of those the policemen left behind, for the country's leader to make himself available, even if only as a rallying point in this time of great loss and sadness.
For what a big letdown it had been for the families to learn of their tragic loss from media while the president, who knew of the mission and probably gave it his approval, to keep to himself for three days without saying anything, not even to say how sorry he was for everything. And then, when the bodies came home, what a picture the president presented of himself on tv, grinning from ear to ear as he inspected cars, while the coffins of his men lined the tarmac at Villamor.
The sense of betrayal is palpable everywhere. Even members of the media who work for news organizations normally supportive of the president have poured out their dismay in posts on Facebook and Twitter. Men and women in uniform everywhere have been wounded deeply. The ultimate sacrifice for which they have prepared for, they can take. It is only their sense of honor and professionalism that has kept them from disintegrating under the weight of this unexpected betrayal.