Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:27:00 02/09/2011
IT IS difficult not to be moved by the elemental nature of former Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes’ suicide on Tuesday: A battle-tested soldier had unexpectedly taken his life in front of his beloved mother’s grave. The crisis in which Reyes found himself was truly turbulent, and the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City had turned out to be the still center, his personal zone of peace, in a storm of surprising ferocity.
Many of us were shocked when we heard of his death, and the shock deepened when we learned that it was in that central stillness where Reyes had drawn the strength, not to persevere, but to kill himself. Because of his role in recent history—he was appointed Armed Forces chief of staff by President Joseph Estrada, became a hero of Edsa 2, served as a close ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo throughout her nine-year term—his suicide may be the most consequential in our history since former Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin’s in 1987.
That he was accused of large-scale and systemic corruption by his former budget officer and an intimate family friend, retired Col. George Rabusa, only adds significance to his suicide. Some of the blood that was shed last Tuesday spattered on the institution he served longest, the system whose flaws eventually swallowed his own reputation: the AFP.
But Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago is right: at his moment of death, not having even been formally charged, he was protected by the legal presumption of innocence. And it is almost a certainty that his fellow Filipinos, a famously forgiving people, will over time give him the benefit of the doubt. Very few, we think, will object to full military honors for Reyes at his funeral…
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