Good Men Die Young

Last Friday, a barangay tanod was killed in our village. There was a bayle in a sitio, and he tried to pacify a drunk. The drunk stabbed him four times. I know only the tanod by his nickname–Pandoy. He was an extremely shy man, I think partly because he only had a few years of school. I had not exchanged more than a few words with him. Whenever my family had to stay out of the village for a few days, my father would ask Pandoy to feed our dogs, and he would, for a little more than a thank-you. He was known in our village as reliable and hardworking. He was in fact also hired as the official “water tender” of the village’s water system. He fixed leaking pipes and similar stuff, and for his labor, he was given P50 or so per month. As a barangay tanod, he was paid P280 per month. For an amount that most of us would consider a pittance, Pandoy served his community and even gave his life. I find it hard to believe that there there’s still such a person living in this country. Most of us think often of what we can get, not what we can give. Many of us even get as much as we can get away with. I thought I’d learned everything about service from the great men in history I’d read about. I didn’t know I had one more great lesson to learn—from a “lowly” barangay tanod, by example.