MANILA, Philippines - Late Thursday morning to mid-afternoon I was in the office of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano where Jun Lozada was being kept preparatory to his appearance before the Senate. He looked tired, his eyebags were already purplish, and he was, understandably, rather high-strung, at times breaking down and sobbing as he recounted the ordeal he has undergone?and which is continuing?and he said he was too tense to sleep and keep down his food properly. He had a firm handshake but his hand was clammy.

Watching him and talking to him, I recalled something my father told me when I was a small boy. I once asked him, what is courage? And he replied by telling me his own father?s definition of courage: the truly brave man is not the man who doesn?t feel fear, but rather the man who is filled with terror but does his duty anyway.

I can appreciate Lozada?s courage. Make no mistake, he has faced among the worst kinds of peril I can imagine: a combined crisis of conscience, fears for his own life and that of his loved ones, the end of a career, the hostility of some friends and the harsh judgment of powerful patrons, uncertainty whether his answering the cries of his own conscience isn?t a foolhardy exercise. Being in such a pressure-cooker situation, contemplating the prospects of a kind of not only professional but financial and social suicide, and wondering if it was foolhardy to embark on a sacrifice the public won?t necessarily recognize?or possibly even deserve ... Well, it?s enough to destroy anyone. Or redeem someone.

He is the kind of Useful Man who once believed that his competence and limited authority allowed him to pull a kind of fast one over political superiors who were his intellectual inferiors: a kind of moral high-wire act involving his tolerating a certain level of official wrongdoing, and yet believing he could accomplish something beneficial, by somehow reducing the overall wrongdoing around him. Operating in a perpetual moral twilight, thinking it?s ultimately for the common good, can?t that then start tricking the senses into confusing twilight with the dawn? At least until a ray of light reminds that person of what the light is truly like?

From whence comes the light? From danger, from confronting one?s mortality yet believing one has an immortal soul: for such a person?one of superior intelligence but inferior social or political status?servitude is always an unpleasant existence; there must be more to life than pleasing the patron and the pleasures of accomplishing the deal.

Lozada?s tragedy and deliverance came from his recognizing the eventual futility of an official relying on a moral line he himself draws, when that line by its very nature must always be vague or at least arbitrary, compared to the lines that should be drawn, beyond the shadow of a doubt, by the law. But the truth is the law draws no line at all, really, because as Lozada came to see, officials with power and those who serve them, know the law so well, they are in a prime position to foil the law?s intent. The official with some kind of conscience, with some sort of patriotic feeling, can try to draw a line, tolerating many things in the hope that it limits the greed. He can hold that line if he finds like-minded people, as he thought Romulo Neri was, once upon a time. Yet Lozada came to see that Neri would not hold the line; that both had enjoyed the kind of discretion that can result in a line so erasable and movable, that it becomes meaningless if the official fears for life or liberty. The only solution is to seek the public?s help. So far, the public has rallied to Lozada?s aid.

There are two things about Lozada that will go far, I think, in understanding the distinctions he?s tried to make, and his eventual decision to hold the line once he felt things had gone too far. The first is that he is proud of being a Thomasian; he quotes Thomas Aquinas widely. The second is he is a passionate student of Jose Rizal.

To illustrate. The whole country knows he said, ?Thomas Aquinas said the worst form of corruption is the corruption of the best.? But he also shared this story: ?Rizal asked his brother Paciano, ?Did God make us poor and silent, or we were so misgoverned we ended up that way?? Paciano couldn?t answer. Two years later, Rizal wrote to Paciano, and said, ?In my travels abroad I have the answer: We didn?t get the right kind of government from our leaders.??

And he said, with a voice beginning to tremble once more, ?We must make it too expensive for someone to screw up the country. Only then will the next person will have second, third, fourth thoughts about trying to mess the country up.?

And to me and a nun fascinated by the conversation, he said, ?If you want to understand my moral compass, there?s this book I read [?Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness, A Philosophy for Leaders,? by Peter Koestenbaum], in which this question was tackled: ?Why is it that billions have walked the earth while only a few have stood the test of time? And yet those few lived at a time when there were many who were more powerful or famous than them?? When a group of thinkers examined these people, they identified four polarities. First, they had a Transformative Vision, for example, Christ?s concept of love. Second, they had Courage, even if it meant going against the trend, like Mohammed. Third, they had a Firm Grasp of Reality. Fourth, they had Unbending Ethics. The four things form a kind of diamond and with all sides present, you have a formidable leader. But if any side is lacking it?s enough to doom any leader.?

He was treated very badly by a government that failed to recognize every man has his limits, a government which assumed it had found the measure of every man: and that the measure is always, Find the least common denominator, fear or greed. This is wrong because there are times when the threat of brute force, or the even more cunningly applied implications of dire consequences, the offers of riches, stiffens instead of weakens a person?s resolve to obey a higher law.

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Live from the Bastusang Pambansa ? 2/06/08
Aliens versus Predators ? 2/04/08
Surprise! ? 1/31/08
Individualistic yet part of the whole ? 1/28/08
A familiar passage ? 1/23/08