MANILA, 22 December 2003 — Foreign Secretary Blas F. Ople was laid to his final resting place at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery), a state honor that has been denied the dictator Ferdinand Marcos whom he had served loyally.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo led hundreds of government officials, foreign dignitaries, war veterans and other mourners in the funeral.
Arroyo, in black dress, dropped a white rose into Ople’s grave, soldiers fired a 19-gun salute and a helicopter showered orchid petals and white balloons on the heavily guarded state funeral at Fort Bonifacio in Makati City.
“This flag is presented to you on behalf of a grateful nation as a token of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service rendered by your loved one, Ka Blas Ople,” the president told Ople’s widow, Susana, as she handed her the Philippine flag that had draped her husband’s casket.
Arroyo, who wore a black dress, then saluted the man whom US Secretary of State Colin Powell had described as “a warm friend of the United States” and “a renaissance man who won distinction as an academician, author, legislator and statesman.”
Ople, who had also been hailed as “a national treasure,” was a member of the guerrilla forces that fought the Japanese occupation army during World War II.
During necrological rites at the Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan, on Saturday night, Arroyo conferred on Ople the Order of Lakandula with the rank of Bayani, the highest presidential award given to the country’s leaders.
Ople, 76, died of a heart attack on Dec. 14 in Taipei, where a plane carrying him and other Philippine officials from Tokyo made an emergency landing after he experienced difficulty in breathing and lost consciousness. He was on his way to Bahrain to join Arroyo in her two-day official visit.
Although afflicted in recent years with pneumonia and a bad cough, Ople remained an active diplomat.
Cabinet members foreign diplomats, lawmakers and military officials joined members of Ople’s family, his friends in the labor sector and the media, and his townmates from Hagonoy, Bulacan province, in a procession which brought Ople’s casket from the Barasoain Church to the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Ople’s grave lies beneath a grove of trees, surrounded by tombs of other notable public figures such as Foreign Minister Carlos P. Romulo, Transportation and Communications Secretary Arturo Enrile, Quezon Rep. Marcial Punzalan, Deputy Prime Minister Jose Alvarez Ro?o, Ambassador Alejandro Melchor, Defense Secretary Manuel Saliente and Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro.
Nearby are the graves of the Unknown Soldier of World War II and of Presidents Diosdado Macapagal and Carlos P. Garcia.
Ople served as labor minister under the dictator Marcos who was overthrown in the 1986 “People Power” Revolution. Unlike Marcos, however, Ople not only escaped an ignominious end; his political career flourished after the dictator’s downfall, capped by a hero’s burial.
Although Philippine leaders are traditionally buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Marcos has been denied that honor by presidents who followed him, fearing a backlash from Filipinos who are outraged by the corruption and human rights violations that marked his iron-fisted rule.
Under President Corazon Aquino, Ople served in the commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution which made it difficult for the rise of another dictator.
He won a Senate seat in 1992 and served briefly as Senate president.
Loved by many for being approachable and having a good sense of humor, Ople had also come under fire from left-wing groups for his pro-US stance.
In July last year, Ople relinquished his Senate post when Arroyo appointed him foreign secretary, replacing Vice President Teofisto Guingona, with whom she had a spat over his opposition to the US military presence in the Philippines.
A son of a poor boat maker, Ople started with menial jobs, working once as a cargo carrier in a pier, before rising to become a journalist and later a labor minister under Marcos.
