Photo credit: Cebu Governor Pam Baricuatro

We are back in our provincial home after another out-of-town engagement in a bustling city, where the talk was again about government scandals and flood control investigations.

The streets move slower here. The air smells of candles and flowers.

Neighbors sweep the roadside, repaint fences, and prepare food for family who will drop by after visiting the cemetery.

At the panchon (town cemetery), families clean the nitso of loved ones, repaint it with kalburo, and carefully trace and clean the names carved on the lapida.

Children go around between graves, gathering melted candle wax and shaping it into small balls that glisten under the soft light of a thousand flames.

The air is filled with murmurs of prayer, ghost stories, laughter, and the faint scent of melted wax and wilted flowers.

It is in moments like these, quiet, familiar, almost sacred, that we remember the kind of public servant this country needs but rarely gets.

This year, one name stands out: Judge Carmela Rosario Pasquin of the Aloguinsan–Pinamungajan Municipal Circuit Trial Court in Cebu.

She was only 41. She died in a motorcycle accident on her way to work last October 22.

Not many had heard her name before. She wasn’t a “celebrity judge” or a social media celebrity. Yet her life says more about what’s right with this country than all the speeches and briefings combined.

Judge Pasquin owned a car but chose not to use it.

Every morning, she rode public transport or hitched a lift with colleagues, saying a judge should live simply and not flaunt privilege.

In a time when many officials cannot seem to travel without their 'alalays,' she chose humility over vanity.

A graduate of the UP College of Law, she was remembered as reserved but witty, principled but kind. She could turn even dry legal concepts into stories ordinary people could understand.

Once, she wrote a fairy-tale version of criminal law, proof that she saw justice not just as a system, but as a human story.

After passing the Bar in 2011, she served in Iloilo, entered the judiciary in 2019, and became a judge in 2024. She worked in a small-town court far from the capital but close to where justice is most needed.

Colleagues recall how she unclogged her docket, mentored her staff, and helped nearby courts clear their cases.

Now contrast that with the news these days: ghost flood control projects tied to questionable contracts and padded budgets.

While trillions in public funds vanish into muddy channels, one judge in the provinces quietly lived out the ideals others only preach: simplicity, accountability, integrity.

It is not just tragic that she died young. It is tragic that people like her are the exception, not the rule.

In a bureaucracy often flooded with greed, Judge Pasquin was a dry patch of honesty. She did not enrich herself or chase promotions.

Yet it is people like her who hold up the moral weight of government, the ones who do their jobs, day in and day out, without press releases or applause.

As the Supreme Court said in its tribute, she embodied “the conscience of the judiciary.”

That conscience does not belong to the courts alone. It belongs to every public servant who still believes that service is sacrifice, not self-service.

On this All Souls’ Day, we think too of the many others like her, the justices, judges, prosecutors, public attorneys, clerks, stenographers, and court workers who wake up before sunrise, kiss their children goodbye, and head to hearings in distant towns.

Many of them are women, mothers who spend more time with case files than with their own families, who miss birthdays and school programs because justice in this country often demands more than time; it demands heart.

We know some of them personally, women who quietly bear these burdens without complaint, who keep faith in their oaths despite exhaustion and doubt.

Their stories remind us that honesty and compassion still exist in government, though often unseen.

To them, we owe a special tribute.

These women, often unthanked, carry both the burden of family and the weight of duty.

They are proof that decency and dedication still live quietly within our public service.

They are the quiet spine of the Republic, holding the line so that others may still believe in what is left of decency and law.

So as we light candles this All Souls’ Day, maybe we can light one not just for our departed loved ones, but for the good servants who went before us, those who kept faith in their oaths when so many have forgotten theirs.

Judge Carmela Pasquin’s life reminds us that integrity does not require wealth or power.

It only requires a choice: to take the jeepney instead of the car, to serve instead of enrich, to do the right thing even when no one is watching.

If only more of our officials lived that way, we would not need to talk about flood control scandals at all.

Sa gobyernong sanay sa luho at palusot, ang mga tulad ni Judge Pasquin ang tunay na biyaya.

Tahimik siyang naglingkod, marangal siyang namuhay, at sa huli, siya ang halimbawa ng kung anong dapat ipagdasal ng bayan.

Daghang salamat, Judge, sa paalalang may tapat pa ring mga lingkod bayan sama nimo.

Ed Javier

Ed Javier is a veteran communicator with over 35 years of experience in corporate, government, and advocacy communications, spanning the terms of seven Philippine presidents. He is also a political analyst, entrepreneur, and media professional. Drawing on this experience, he delivers clear, accessible analysis of political, governance, and business issues.