ShareThisDear readers,
I’d like to apologize for missing my column in the previous issue. My daughter-in-law, a recent cancer survivor, had to deal with the long hospitalization of her 77-year old mother. It culminated in a successful 5-block heart bypass this month. It means that my son had to stand beside his wife and I had to try and keep our home life intact as we all struggled to cope with our most recent challenge.
What an irony it is that as an old woman was struggling to stay alive, a robust former general ended his own life!
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Defying life, Angelo T. Reyes, 65, put a bullet in his heart on the morning of February 8, 2011. Being a former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and a loyal cabinet member of the much-maligned misrule of Gloria Arroyo, Angelo T. Reyes hogged the headlines as he departed planet Earth. However, most ordinary folk dismissed the official suicide story as hogwash. They believed it was an assassination.
Defying death, Belen E. Vizcarra, 77, underwent a 5-block heart bypass at the Philippine Heart Center on the afternoon of February 7, 2011. Being an ordinary woman who never held a government position even at the barangay level, Belen E. Vizcarra did not merit the same media attention, which the former first gentleman, Miguel Arroyo, always commands whenever he seeks medical attention for his heart at St. Luke’s Hospital.
Friends and relatives of Angelo T. Reyes claim that Reyes died a hero’s death. They say he took his life to shock his accusers at the Philippine Senate and make them feel guilty at having accused him. They say he took his life to salvage his name and honor which has been irretrievably blackened by the accusation of massive corruption while serving as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. They say he took his life to protect the integrity of the military institution. They say his last act was an act of supreme courage – a most honorable act.
Friends and relatives of Belen E. Vizcarra say that she has lived a long and useful life providing food and shelter in her modest home for young relatives from the province seeking a college degree in Manila. They say she has provided food and shelter to relatives seeking refuge from the deadly eruption of Mount Pinatubo in Pampanga. They say she has given generous helpings of love and care to an assortment of nieces and nephews, in addition to her own children. They say she has always served the Lord as a lay leader in church and as a medical volunteer. They say she defied death because her friends and relatives wanted her long life to continue flourishing. They say her most recent act of cheating death is an act of inspiring humility.
The heart of Angelo T. Reyes was healthy. But he blew a hole into it with a bullet. Media accounts say he dearly loved his parents, especially his mother, and spent the whole day on February 7, 2011 at their grave. He decided to join his parents in the netherworld the very next morning.
The heart of Belen E. Vizcarra was sputtering dangerously. It had five blocks which would have surely resulted in death had the bypass not been done on her. While Angelo T. Reyes was contemplating death on February 7, the family and friends of Belen E. Vizcarra knelt down at the chapel of the Philippine Heart Center and prayed the four mysteries of the holy rosary. When the chief cardiovascular surgeon emerged out of the operating room, he informed the family of Belen E. Vizcarra that she has been given another lease on life. Heaven can wait, and certainly will.