A meditation on power and reluctance
I sometimes think the rarest political talent is not brilliance, not popularity, not even courage—but the ability to say no when the whole world is already applauding your yes. In the United States, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman gave a sentence so clean it still sounds like it was carved out of stone: “If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.” It is less a rejection of politics than a diagnosis of it: a warning that not all opportunities are invitations, and not all invitations are suited for human survival.
In the Philippines, we have our own quieter version of that instinct. It does not always come in the form of generals or philosophers. Sometimes it comes from a comedian. Dolphy, the Comedy King, was repeatedly urged to enter politics, and he consistently declined with disarming honesty: “Natatakot ako, paano kung manalo ako.” It is funny only at first hearing. On reflection, it is almost uncomfortable. In a political culture that often treats visibility as virtue, he suggested something more dangerous: that being popular does not automatically mean being fit to lead.
The Catholic Church, oddly enough, has been practicing this uncomfortable idea for centuries. St. Ambrose did not want to be a bishop and reportedly tried to avoid the role entirely. St. Augustine of Hippo resisted ordination so strongly that he had to be effectively compelled by his own community. Only two names, but enough to establish a pattern: greatness in the Church has often begun with refusal, not ambition.
That is why a recent decision in the Philippines felt strangely ancient in its logic. A priest appointed as bishop-elect of Tagbilaran, Fr. Gerardo Saco Jr., stepped away before ordination, citing not scandal or conflict, but something far more unsettling in modern life: self-knowledge. He spoke of his “deep awareness of human limitations and inadequacies.” In other words, he looked at the weight of the office and quietly concluded: I am not sure I should carry this.
It is a sentence that would collapse most political campaigns. And yet I find myself wishing that sentence were more common in Philippine public life—especially in the Senate and Congress, where longevity sometimes appears less like service and more like endurance sport with better lighting. I imagine, perhaps unfairly, what politics might look like if it absorbed even a fraction of that episcopal hesitation. If more leaders paused long enough to ask whether repetition is still responsibility, whether staying is still serving, whether being elected again is always proof of necessity or sometimes just proof of familiarity. There is a strange economy in public life where presence accumulates value over time, where a name becomes a brand, a brand becomes an institution, and an institution becomes immune to questions of fatigue. Terms end, but visibility rarely retires.
And yet even the most durable systems occasionally produce moments of clarity. Bishop-elect Saco is one of them. Not because he refused greatness, but because he questioned his capacity to carry it. That kind of discernment should not be treated as retreat; it is closer to calibration. If anything, he becomes an unexpected mirror for political life—not a rebuke, but a reminder that leadership is not only about stepping forward, but also about knowing when stepping forward is no longer honest. The Church has seen this before: the saints who reluctantly accepted authority understood something that modern politics often forgets, that the office does not bless the person; the person must be honest about whether they can survive the office.
What makes Saco’s decision quietly radical is that it happened late in the process—after appointment, after anticipation, after expectation had already begun to settle like dust on certainty. And still, he stepped aside. That is not failure; it is interruption. And interruptions, in systems that prefer momentum, are often the only moments when truth can be heard clearly.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “That government is best which governs least.” But I have begun to think the more urgent question is not how government governs, but whether those who govern still remember how to doubt themselves. Because doubt, properly understood, is not weakness. It is the last internal resistance against the seduction of permanence. And in that sense, the courage to refuse—whether from a general, a comedian, or a bishop-elect—is not the absence of ambition. It is the presence of limits. And in public life, limits may be the only honest form of wisdom left that still knows how to speak softly, even when everyone else is applauding.
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Fr. Cyrain Cabuenas is a Catholic priest from Borongan, Eastern Samar, who currently serves in the State of Vermont. He is a former correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Visayas bureau.
