Ex-AFP Chief Angelo Reyes commits suicide

Former Defense Secretary and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief Angelo Reyes died today, February 8, 2011 after shooting himself in front of his mother's grave at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.

Reyes was 65 years old.

According to an Inquirer.net report, Reyes was rushed to Quirino Memorial Medical Center to revive him at 7:45AM. He was proclaimed dead on arrival by the doctors who resuscitated him.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona confirmed that Reyes died of gunshot wound to the heart. He added that the cause and the kind of gun used have not been determined and are still under investigation.

In the same report, the Health Secretary said:

"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)."

Here are more excerpts from the Inquirer.net report:

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.”

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.