RIYADH, 15 May 2006 — A Filipino fashion designer who went missing in Riyadh last month has turned up dead in Alkhobar, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in the Eastern Province has reported.

Information pieced together by Philippine officials in the Kingdom said that Andre Angeles, a 60-year-old employee of Oriental Elegant Fashion in Riyadh, left the shop at about 4:30 p.m. on April 26 and never returned.

It turned out that at about 9 p.m. on that day, he was admitted to the emergency room of the King Fahd Hospital of the University in Alkhobar for treatment but died the following day.

How he ended up dead 460 kilometers away from Riyadh in such a short span of time has baffled his friends and Philippine officials in the Kingdom.

“He only walked out of the shop to buy a pack of cigarettes but he never returned nor called us to tell us where he was,” said Ben Cervantes, also a fashion designer who works in the same shop.

Welfare Officer Danilo Flores said a concerned Filipino working at the hospital called to report the sad fate of Angeles to the POLO office in Alkhobar.

Labor Attaché Delmer Cruz said his office has obtained a death certificate from the hospital but the cause of death remained unclear.

A translation of the certificate from Arabic to English showed only that Angeles died on April 27 at 3:40 p.m. of increased calcium and potassium in the blood.

“An autopsy will reveal the cause of his (Angeles’) death but it cannot be conducted without the permission of the nearest relatives,” Vice Consul Romulo Israel of the embassy in Riyadh told Arab News.

Israel said a representative of Angeles’ employer came to report the incident only last week.

Angeles’ friends said he is from the city of Naga in Camarines Sur, 260 kilometers southeast of Manila, but none of them knows his exact address.

Cervantes said Angeles didn’t have a cell phone and didn’t want to have one because it was difficult for him to operate such a unit.

Another friend, Nestor Rosal, described Angeles as a “cooperative, patient and hardworking man who has never been absent from work even when sick."

Angeles has not gone home for vacation for almost seven years and reportedly intended to do so in December.

One Filipino who asked not to be identified urged the Philippine Embassy to ensure that the relatives of Angeles would at least get the maximum benefits he was entitled to.

Rod Delfino of Riyadh offered a comment when he read the translation of the medical report: “We may have a clear picture of the incident if any of the nurses who attended and talked to Angeles before he died could come forward and talk to Philippine Embassy officials about his last words.”