A Higher Standard

The good attorney Joe Pallugna wrote in a column titled “In Defense Of Bacal” that the incident involving the city councilor was “an ordinary accident that occurs everyday” and that the reason why Bacal is getting so much bad press is that he is a public official.
The good attorney further decried all the “speculation and innuendo” that was and is being heaped on Councilor Bacal adding that “some news reporters” may “have personal reasons to twist” facts to “serve some hidden agenda.”
Forgive me for saying this but I think the good attorney misses the point. By a mile.
True, accidents of this nature happen frequently here as well as in other parts of the country; many other 15-year olds have died after being run over by wayward Revos.
But does the frequency of these accidents make it any less painful for the victims’ families? The good attorney may be well versed on the nitty gritty of the law. A word of advice though: TACT. Use your dictionary, look the word up.
Second. It is precisely because Councilor Bacal is an elected official that the incident generated so much bad press. By his own account, Councilor Bacal immediately left the scene of the accident, without bothering to bring the boy to the hospital nor even checking if the boy was still alive because he said he feared that the boy’s relatives may do him harm. After that, he hemmed and hawed, saying he did not know he hit anybody, saying this, saying that, all the while seeking the help of the powers that be.
This behavior is perfectly understandable for ordinary people as the good attorney says. But Councilor Bacal is no ordinary person. He is an elected official, a person with the political mandate of an entire community. He actively sought the people’s trust and gained his office with the tacit understanding that he would put the people’s interests above his own. At all times.
Political office is not something a person discards after office hours. It is not something that people do for a living like, say, brokering stocks or raising chickens. A person, once elected into office, serves in the capacity as a public servant 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We entrust our lives, our destiny even, to people such as Councilor Bacal. We entrust the crafting of laws that we would have to live by-- laws that dictate how much we have to set aside for taxes, where we can build our houses, what we can and can not do-- to people such as Councilor Bacal.
It is therefore natural to expect better behavior from people such as Councilor Bacal. It is therefore natural, and right, that such people as Councilor Bacal are made to answer to a higher standard.