MANILA, Philippines—When testimonies linking him to corruption began emerging, Angelo Reyes, the late Armed Forces chief of staff, had felt that a “campaign to humiliate” him was irreversible, his friend Rex Robles said Tuesday. In their conversations after the corruption scandal erupted, Robles recalled that he would hear this refrain from Reyes: “There’s nothing I can do. They are determined to crush me.”
Reyes aired the same sentiment in their last phone conversation on Monday afternoon, a day before he killed himself.
Reyes had apparently become too helpless that he did not believe that bringing the matter to courts would put a stop to it, said Robles, a retired Navy commodore.
“They will not stop, pare [friend]. They will continue to bring me down. They’re not interested in a legal victory. They’re interested in destroying me in every possible way,” he quoted Reyes as telling him.
Not the issue
Despite this, Robles said he didn’t see the suicide coming.
“I saw Reyes as a quick-thinking person, a fighter. He’s not without recourse, and the issue is not him, but the plea bargain, which is obnoxious, abominable,” Robles said of the plea bargain between ex-military comptroller Carlos Garcia and government prosecutors.
Reyes and Robles had talked on several occasions, either in person or by phone, after Reyes had been accused of pocketing huge sums from military funds by ex-budget officer George Rabusa in the Senate.
Family next target
The last time they talked was last Monday when Reyes called to report to Robles that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo phoned him about the scandal.
Reyes had also worried that the raging corruption scandal would drag his family and even bring the military to its knees, Robles said.
“My family would be the next target. They’ll destroy it,” Robles quoted Reyes as telling him.
“He knew there was a campaign to humiliate him,” Robles added.
Worried about AFP
“He was worried about what’s happening to the Armed Forces. Because if he admitted wrongdoing, everyone will be implicated, even those who did not take money but never did anything about it. Most tried to ‘convert’ money,” he said, referring to Rabusa’s testimony that the military converted funds for personal use of top officials.
Arroyo asked Reyes about statements made by both Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV that Garcia was fronting for somebody powerful, and about Reyes’ letter to Trillanes challenging him to name the powerful person, Robles said.
TJ Burgonio, Phil. Daily Inquirer
