Angelo Reyes is dead. this news surprised me yesterday. well, not the fact that he is dead but the fact he apparently committed suicide. i learned about it around 9:30am while i was on my way to work. i stopped by a nearby store to buy some cellphone credits when i overheard the news in an A.M. radio station. the news was about Honasan making a comment regarding the death of Reyes. at first, i thought i must have heard it wrong. he killed himself? that cant be right. why the hell would Reyes commit suicide? i dont know the guy personally but ive read and seen him in the news for years and one of my professors personally know him. based from how Reyes projected himself in the media and how my professor described how Reyes was like as DoE chief, it wasnt in his character to do such an act that reflects weakness. so i wondered yesterday what could drive a strong man to end his own life?
suicide is a form of escape. weak-willed desperate people commit this. usually. some commit suicide as an extreme form of political protest while some kill themselves so they can die with honor, like the seppuku. i dont know where Reyes would fall in. i imagined putting myself in Reyes' position and asked myself, what would make me kill myself? the answer i got is, when its the only way, or the best way, i can protect something. what that is for Reyes, i wouldnt know. we can only assume what he thinks needs to be protected. if Reyes is as strong as how he have shown himself through the years, i think thats a good reason why he would do such a thing. he literally took a bullet for something or someone he wanted to protect. if such is the case, what he did is honorable yet not necessarily admirable.
another possible reason i can think of is, he lost his strength to fight obstacles. what could drain a strong man of his strength? one thing i can think of is the realization of being alone against insurmountable difficulties. to have no one to turn to or no one to rely on especially from the people he thought he could expect to provide some form of help. another is to realize that one is a victim of a rotten system that he merely inherited and in a way accepted because that's the only way he knew how he could operate and perform his functions. going against the flow isnt something we teach in schools. well, the schools ive attended always say its difficult to go against the flow. they neither discourage or encourage (its like, dont blindly conform but at the same time dont be a non-conformist. going against the flow will, and should always be, a personal decision and not something dictated or taught in order for it to retain its value). im not saying Reyes is in fact a victim nor he felt victimized. the question im trying to point out is, assuming he did what his accusers allege, how many would not do the same thing? how many would go against what seems to be an accepted "tradition"? assuming the allegations were true, i guess he wasnt that man who's meant to "rock the boat". normally, no one wants to rock the boat. also, we have to take into consideration military culture. admirable men would do something about it of course but not anyone can do it. well, this is what i can gather from the little piece of information i receive from the current events reported in the news. from what i know about politics, there's always something that's not reported that changes how we perceive things from how things are portrayed by the media.
if Reyes didnt kill himself and continued to fight, it would have been admirable but at the expense of his honor. his reputation is already tarnished even if he ends up clearing his name. there are just some things that cant be restored. if the way i see things are true, i guess he chose to have the honor he has left rather than being admirable. to some people, there's no point doing something admirable when youre all alone or it means going against the people that are close to you or could lead to the destruction of things that matter or close to one's heart. for some, its better to have the respect of your close peers than the admiration of strangers.
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