The concept of command responsibility should be embedded in the governance of our country. It should replace the charge-me-first and kapit-tuko practices, which denigrate the essence of command.
I have been an unabashed admirer of Japan and Japanese society. There are a number of reasons for this admiration.
The first reason is the speed with which Japan recovered from the ruins of the war that it started in 1941 with its sneak attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. In September 1945, when it signed the instrument of surrender, Japan was a devastated country and its industrial machine lay in ruins. But within a few years, the Land of the Rising Sun had rehabilitated itself —with aid from its conqueror, the US—and was back as a formidable trading nation.
The second basis for my admiration is the discipline that imbues Japan’s society and culture. Japanese society is one of the most disciplined societies in the world, and Japanese culture – be it the behavior of 120 million people or the arts or gastronomy – is steeped in traditionality and a concern for social cohesion. Japanese society is orderly, a trait perhaps best illustrated by the fact that megalopolis Tokyo has one of the lowest big-city murder rates in the world.
The third reason for my staunch admiration for Japan and Japanese society is the quality and caliber of the Japanese economy. The world’s largest and second-largest economies – those of the US and China, respectively – are economies of countries that are enormous and possessed of bountiful physical resources. In contrast, Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is a comparatively small country that has to import virtually all of the physical resources needed by its producers and consumers.
Yet, Japan is one of the world’s most competitive countries and the growth of its powerful economy is fueled by the achievements of its science and technology sector. Among the latest of these is Japan’s recent landing of a vehicle on a hitherto difficult-to-reach side of the moon.
These are sufficient reasons for being an admirer of Japan and Japanese society. But I have still one more reason to offer in support of my admiration, and this relates to what has been happening in this country’s governance over the years.
I refer to the Japanese government tradition of command responsibility – a tradition best demonstrated by the rites of seppuku or hara-kiri. Under this tradition, the top-ranking, or commanding official of a government office – a ministry, a department or a bureau – that is involved in a disaster or scandal assumes full responsibility by virtue of his having been the official in command.
The official does not wait for an investigation that will possibly lead to a conviction; he simply resigns or, in the traditional Japanese way, unceremoniously disembowels himself (seppuku or hara-kiri). He does not hire a pricey lawyer who proclaims to all and sundry that “My client is innocent until proven guilty.”
Examples of this tradition are not hard to find. The most recent is the hara-kiri of a member of the security detail of Shinzo Abe, who assumed command responsibility and committed hara-kiri for not having prevented the assassination of the retired Japanese Prime Minster. And many years earlier, the Minister of Transportation quickly resigned following the derailment, with many lives lost, of a Japan National Railways train.
The official in charge of the Abe security detail and the Minister of Transportation were not closely connected to the occurrence of the events in question, but they were the officials ultimately in command. Under the Japanese government tradition of command responsibility, that was sufficient reason for them to go.
The concept of command responsibility should be embedded in the governance of our country. It should replace the charge-me-first and kapit-tuko practices, which denigrate the essence of command.
“Heads will roll”, President Marcos was heard to say upon learning of the flight of the alien ‘major’ of Bamban, Tarlac. If Mr. Marcos were the head of government of Japan, he would not have had to make that statement. The persons in command of the concerned government agencies—immigration, local governments, police and armed forces in particular —would have beheaded themselves.
(llagasjessa@yahoo.com)
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