P

ress hounds are only after the bad news, people say. But much of today'€™s good news is great, while much of the bad news is boring.

The latter includes: rioting in Makassar, which tragically killed one student; fights between police and soldiers; opposition to Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama becoming Jakarta governor; on-and-off-and-almost peace deals at the legislature; and internal competition within political parties.

The good news has included: Ahok being installed as governor anyway; individuals known for their integrity being picked to help President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo wipe out corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN); and the church finally welcoming the first female head of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), Rev. Henriette Lebang.

 Such landmarks are precious given the constant hurdles faced by reformasi (reformation), however trivial to some.

For instance, the ethnic Chinese will feel more like equal citizens now that Ahok is leading the capital, while many Jakartans just care about the new governor minimizing the annual flood chaos.

Getting leaders to tackle the notorious oil and gas sources of corruption is always a big deal. The President decided the economist Faisal Basri should lead the new ad hoc oil and gas governance reform team.

Faisal is a former candidate for Jakarta governor who said he was not really hoping to win, but wished to campaign, not very successfully, to increase awareness that penniless individuals without political party support could become governor.

A cofounder of the National Mandate Party (PAN), the democracy activist has no experience in government, so we will see how tough he is in facing the slippery, lucrative oil and gas world.

On Wednesday, the President pulled out of his hat another figure known for his integrity to head the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas) whose last chief is in prison for corruption. '€œWe don'€™t know Pak Amien,'€ said Sammy Hamzah, vice president of the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA), of Amien Sunaryadi.

Indeed, Amien was in the shadows of the first generation of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), working on the technology that helped net so many corruptors in the act.

After his service at the KPK, the World Bank immediately sought Amien'€™s services. The IPA will also be glad to know that Amien, like Jokowi, is a recipient of the prestigious Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award. So the President did the right thing and put the former KPK deputy to work in government again '€” in a much more tempting, challenging job.

The biggest let-down was on Thursday when the long-awaited new attorney general turned out to be a politician and former junior prosecutor, HM Prasetyo. He will have to prove his doubters wrong or more support for Jokowi will drop following the controversial fuel hike.

Many cannot fathom the President'€™s choice of a politician from his coalition in the legislature, which will be grounds for skepticism for Prasetyo'€™s decisions, particulary in major cases regarding corruption and human rights violations.

Some support might be restored if our skinny commander in chief, President Jokowi, can prove his firmness in the Batam shoot-out between the police and military.

The deadly melee repeated the September shooting in the Riau provincial town, which a police-TNI investigation team found to involve at least two soldiers implicated in illegal fuel-stockpiling.

Being trapped in crossfire for six hours must surely have been traumatic for residents of Batam, a short ferry ride from Singapore. Along with Deputy Governor Soerya Respationo, people inside and around the Mobile Brigade headquarters lay low for hours under whizzing bullets throughout Wednesday night.

This time, the lax discipline in both forces (a far cry from civilians'€™ expectations of the only men allowed to use force) stretched to the unthinkable '€” soldiers raided their own weapons warehouse to boost their brawl power. One soldier was killed; if he were my son, I'€™d demand his superiors be fired on the spot. When your daughter or son enlists in the police or army, getting killed in such a brawl is an unthinkable and unacceptable loss.

But even if, say, Bukit Barisan Commander Maj. Gen. Winston P. Simanjuntak is fired, how will the military and police show public accountability for rampant abuse of public trust? How will they ensure it will not happen again, after too many incidents?

The common excuses are low welfare, and that soldiers envy police who now get more '€œjobs'€ on the side like securing entertainment spots or illegal businesses. The brawls among men in uniform just because they claim to be poor or jealous is an obvious repeated threat to national security.

But the possible good news is if commander in chief Jokowi can push for a thorough solution to such incidents.

Hopefully he'€™ll also review why so many soldiers have nothing better to do in peace time. Do we have a big security threat in the small town that the police cannot handle?

Maybe we are just continuing the habit of having military commands all around us because we can'€™t send enough soldiers to better-paying peacekeeping operations across the globe, where our TNI is often praised.

Another great piece of news would be the end to the virginity tests that National Police officers confirmed are used to test the morality of female recruits.

Then we would have a grand landmark in ending another mindset that reflects the urgent need for a '€œmental revolution'€ '€” that women, and women alone, determine the high or low morality of an entire nation.