Hearts and flowers SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 02/14/2011

Hearts and flowers

SHE SAYS

Dinah S. Ventura

02/14/2011
It is Valentine’s Day: Flowers will be offered, and hearts will bloom, or hearts will bleed.
The unexpected death of former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes last Feb. 8, on the birthday of current President Noynoy Aquino at that, left many reeling. Questions, more than answers, erupted. On the morning the news broke out, reactions varied from shock to dismay, sympathy to suspicion.

Death wrenches at the heart, no matter how you look at it. If your sympathies lie with the deceased and his loved ones, then Reyes’ apparent suicide should make you want to post tributes to the man, just as some TV reports seem to have done. If your emotions are colored by recent events, which led to the death to be sure, then you must be trying to make sense of this last action of a man whose life had been marked by lofty achievements few are privileged to achieve.

Does death absolve sin? Does it change things?I would hazard a guess: It does not.

What Reyes left behind is unfinished business, and while he always proclaimed innocence, the controversy had already involved his name. But Reyes left before he could fix what damage to his reputation it had caused, leaving his wife and children to absorb the effects. Of this there could be no doubt: It was his great concern for his family’s welfare that made him pull the trigger..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110214com7.html