YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES BUT THE DEATH IS ROMANTIC

Opting out in the face of corruption charges. Doesn't seem very heroic to me. And this must be the most dishonorable way for a soldier, let alone a leader of soldiers, to exit. Nevertheless I hope the General finds the peace he craved that so eluded him in the last days of his life.

The General shot himself over the grave of his mom. Mind the blood spatter.

Ex-AFP chief commits suicide, police confirm
By Katherine Evangelista
Agence France-Presse, INQUIRER.net
First Posted 08:53:00 02/08/2011

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE 6) “Sorry.”

That was the last word that former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Angelo Tomas Reyes apparently uttered as his sons and aides frantically carried him and rushed him to the hospital on Tuesday.

Doctors at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City tried to revive him for 45 minutes but failed.

Reyes, 65, who had also served as defense secretary and in other Cabinet-level posts, died from a single bullet fired into his chest, Health Secretary Enrique Ona said.

Eastern Police's District chief Superintendent Francisco Manalo said investigation showed that the gunshot wound Reyes sustained was “self-inflicted.”

Ona said the wound on the left side of the chest near the heart was the cause of death. "He was dead on arrival (at hospital). They were not able to revive him,” he told reporters.

Reyes, together with his two children and a bodyguard, was visiting his mother’s grave at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City Tuesday morning, Feliciano Recorba, a cemetery maintenance staff, told Radyo Inquirer.

"He asked his children and bodyguard to go ahead and wait for him in the car,” Recorba said. A few moments later, a gunshot rung out, he said.

“Sorry” was the last word Reyes uttered as his shocked children rushed to the scene and found him lying on the ground holding a gun, Recorba said.

“Ang narinig ko po na sinabi niya ay ‘sorry’, palagay ko po ay para sa anak [I heard him say ‘sorry’, perhaps to his son],” he said.

Reyes, who loved his mother very much, had told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a previous interview that he would never do anything that would besmirch the name of “my good mother.”

Read the rest of the Inquirer story HERE.

Here's a  vid for you, Gen Reyes. It's by Filter.

You fought and you were right, but they were just too strong.