"Angie" [reposted from FB Notes, 09 February 2011]

Known as “Angie” to his friends, Angelo Tomas Reyes completed his secondary education as the class valedictorian, and in 1966, he was among the top ten graduates of the prestigious Philippine Military Academy. After which, he acquired two master' degrees-  Masters in Business Administration from the 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 Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. He served the Philippine government for several years, mainly under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He served as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Phils., Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Interior & Local Govt, Secretary of Environment & Natural Resources, and Secretary of Energy Dept., until he was allegedly involved into one of the biggest corruption scandals in AFP.

He was about to stand in a Senate probe on February 08, 2011, when on that same day he died from a gunshot wound to the chest in an apparent suicide.

Whether or not he died with honor [or horror] does not exempt his comrades and family from the scandal. His wife would also be summoned to a legislative inquiry on the latter’s attachment to such a multi-million dollar corruption outrage.

Upon hearing the breaking news, I was for a moment wordless, for it is unlikely for a high ranking military officer with aforementioned credentials, to get his own life pending a controversy. After all the “war” he has been through, he just ended up expired, only in this Congressional combat. Even Japanese people who were known to be committing “Harakiri”, no longer consider suicide as the “art of death” but cowardice.

Indeed, whenever we put our trust to “man”, to “a man”, or to “ the man” who, like us are all temporal, limited, carnal, vulnerable, imperfect, and incomplete, we would always end up losers and helpless. It was evident that Angelo puts his trust only to man and not to God, his creator. If it were not, then he should have faced the battle with true courage. The real battle is not of the flesh, but of the spirit. The more he tries to redeem his own dignity and build up his own defenses through his own ways and his own efforts, the more he gets burned out, tired and weary. Purely human efforts impede God’s grace and thereby, suppress the Holy Spirit’s power which is supposed to be upon us, because we are God’s masterpiece and creation after His own image. God’s “amazing grace” is never realized in our lives whenever our heart is filled with all those “man-made graces.”  I can't help but ask now...

“What profits a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his soul?”