A lesson from Socrates for Pia, Bato

By Alex P. Vidal

“Know thyself.”―Socrates

THERE’S no law that prohibits members of the legislature from crying, but in the case of Pia Cayetano, she needed and wanted it.

In his 1972 hit song, Wildflower, Skylark belted, “Let her cry, for she’s a lady. Let her dream, for she’s a child. Let the rain fall down upon her. She’s a free and gentle flower, growing wild.”

Crying didn’t reduce Pia Cayetano as intellectual Lilliputian.

What she did was a complex physiological and emotional response that may have served her three primary purposes: social communication, emotional self-soothing, and biochemical release. Human nature.

Although he sent away the crying women in his jail, Socrates (c. 470–399 BC) believed women share the same natural capacities, intellect, and virtues as men, and are equally fit for governance and the military.

He believed the only fundamental difference is that women are generally physically weaker than men.

But the classical Greek philosopher from Athens, who popularized the famous saying, “I know that I know nothing,” didn’t like weeping women.

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When Socrates’ wife Xanthippe and the other women began weeping loudly before his execution, Socrates instructed his friend Crito to escort them home, as recounted by his student Plato in the Phaedo.

History tells us Socrates did this because he wanted to face his death with measured peace and dignified composure, believing that a man should pass away in quiet reverence rather than amidst wailing.

Later that day, historians recounted Socrates also lightly scolded his male followers for weeping, forcing them to hold back their tears.

Like Socrates, some members of the Senate minority bloc led by Panfilo Lacson and Erwin Tulfo may have felt the same way.

Aside from being alluded to when Pia Cayetano sobbed,” Walang ni isa sa inyong nangamusta sa amin” (no one from among you bothered to check if we’re okay) while recalling fearing for her life and saying goodbye to her children, men in the minority bloc may have felt slighted and uncomfortable like Socrates, the wisest man in Athens according to the Oracle of Delphi.

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Also, while ICC fugitive Bato Dela Rosa fled like a very scared rabbit, Socrates did the opposite when given the opportunity to escape from jail.

In fact, history tells us Socrates could have saved himself, but he chose to go to trial rather than enter voluntary exile.

In his defense speech, Socrates rebutted some but not all elements of the charges and famously declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

According to history, he could have proposed a reasonable penalty short of death but initially refused after being convicted.

Socrates finally rejected an offer of escape as inconsistent with his commitment never to do wrong (escaping would show disrespect for the laws and harm the reputations of his family and friends).

Socrates died in 399 BC by drinking a lethal dose of poison hemlock. An Athenian court convicted him of impiety and corrupting the youth, sentencing him to execution.

Rather than accepting exile or fleeing, he chose to abide by the law, peacefully accepting his fate among his followers.

Dela Rosa, 61, as of this writing, remained in hiding after escaping from the Philippine senate building at 2:30 o’clock in the morning on May 14, 2026.

Efforts to arrest him are now being undertaken by the NBI and PNP on orders from the Department of Justice after the Supreme Court rejected his petition for a TRO.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)