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Angelo Reyes commits suicide

By Cynthia Balana Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 08:53:00 02/08/2011

Filed Under: Obituary, Military, Graft & Corruption

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE 2) Former Armed Forces Chief and Defense Secretary
Angelo Tomas Reyes on Tuesday morning committed suicide by shooting himself in
front of the grave of his mother at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.

He was 65.

A close friend of Reyes called the Philippine Daily Inquirer to break the news,
while Colonel Boogie De Leon, a former administrative officer of Reyes when he
was AFP chief, said Reyes was rushed to the Quirino Hospital at about 7:45 a.m.
to revive him. Members of his family could not be reached for comment.

De Leon said that Reyes’s son Jett called him up to inform him of the incident.

Reyes, who earlier suffered a mild stroke before the congressional
investigations on the alleged AFP financial irregularities, said he could not
take anymore the smear campaign against his name and his family.

“Not my family,” he said.

Reyes, who loved his mother very much when she was still alive, earlier told the
Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview that he would never do anything that
would besmirch the name of “my good mother.”

In a press conference aired on radio and television, Health Secretary Enrique
Ona confirmed Reyes has died from gunshot wound to the heart. He said Reyes was
proclaimed dead on arrival at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Quezon
City.

Ona said the doctors tried to resuscitate Reyes who was brought to the hospital
at 7:30 a.m. from Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City where he visited the
grave of his mother.

Ona refused to say what caused the gunshot wounds and could not determine the
kind of gun used, saying all these were under investigation.

He “was brought here to the emergency room, wala nang pulso at di na humihinga.
Nilagyan ng tubo at nag-resuscitation, swero, binigyan ng gamot. But after 45
minutes, which means that at 8:32 a.m., talagang wala na (without pulse and not
breathing. He was tubated and resuscitated, put on IV. But after 45 minutes,
which means that at 8:32 a.m., he’s really gone).”

He had a gunshot wound to the heart and an external wound to the back.

Reyes, a graduate of Philippine Military Academy Class ’66, was AFP chief under
President Joseph Estrada, and secretary of defense, interior and local
government, and energy during the term of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from
2001 to 2003. He graduated as the class valedictorian in high school and was
among the top ten graduates of the PMA.

He went on to obtain two masteral degrees, namely: Masters in Business
Administration from Asian Institute of Management in 1973 and a Master of Public
Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1991. He
also took up International Defense Management Course in Monterey, California in
1983.

In 1987, he graduated No. 1 in Trust Operations Management Course conducted by
the Trust Institutes Foundation of the Philippines at the Ateneo Business School
which eventually earned him a scholarship to the Northwestern University in
Chicago, Illinois.