Finger pointing is what cowards do!

A lot of criticisms had been already said to the captain of Costa Concordia cruise ship, Francesco Schettino, which capsized a week ago due the said captain’s disregard for orders. Moreover, he abandoned the ship even before the evacuation was completed. In the strict sense of the word, that is without doubt ‘cowardice’. It’s not like portraying a shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheeps to search for the missing one. Cpt. Schettino completely underestimated his being a captain of a ship.   

c/o scholastic.com

But I want to stretch the issue even further. What led to his being stubborn? What made him think that abandoning the ship was the ‘right’ thing to do? We may have differing opinions on these questions but the truth of the matter is only him can satiate our curious (if not prejudiced) mind. One thing is for sure, the captain was “communicating” something. He knew exactly of the consequences of his actions but he stood to his principles. Poor him, he must have missed his class on “the end does not justify the means.”

I am not defending him because for me he’s still selfish, but perhaps instead of (or while) casting the stones at him, we could put the stone down and step forward to know his issues. We might be surprised that after all this ‘cowardice’ is a picture of a rotten system, of biased and egoistic principles of those in positions, and of an empty people.  It must be a bombshell to us to realize that after all we also deserve the stones we threw at him, maybe even bigger in size, even harsher.  

We live in a society full of passengers who are occupied with excitement for a luxurious journey experience, but oftentimes taken aback instead by a nightmare experience. Our society is also full of captains and crews with the conviction ‘to be of service,’ but most of the time it turns out the former receiving more for doing less and the latter rendering more and being paid less. Can we also claim that this kind of society exhibits ‘cowardice’? And yet we don’t recognize it; we don’t do anything to halt and change it.

Each time we ignore a simple act of kindness; each time we deny our time to help, or withdraw ourselves to reach out; each time we erase God into the picture and cover it with our limitedness – we are not any better than a captain of a capsized cruise ship.

If there is one lesson to all this happening that stood out, it is BRAVERY – the ability to responsibly do something after knowing you sucked big time.

*I would like to commend all those people who helped in the evacuation and rescue operation, most especially to the Filipino crews whose spirit of service is beyond the signs of Euro and $. Mabuhay kayo, mga Kababayan!