Self-righteous lawmakers killed Reyes…

"Of course, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Antonio Trillanes, Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez and all the other people who piled on Reyes can say that it was the ex-defense chief who aimed the gun to his chest and pulled the trigger…
And so we must ask this question of the self-righteous and self-important lawmakers (and all self-righteous and self-important people everywhere) who drove Reyes to his death and cheered it when it actually happened: Are you happy now? …
Reyes may be guilty as charged or entirely innocent. We’ll never really know. "

Self-righteous lawmakers killed Reyes…

Columnist Jojo Robles opines that “if there is anything we can learn from the suicide of former Armed Forces chief and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, it is this: Some people value their reputations above everything else, and they will go to any extreme if they feel that their honor has been unjustly ruined forever.

And so we must ask this question of the self-righteous and self-important lawmakers (and all self-righteous and self-important people everywhere) who drove Reyes to his death and cheered it when it actually happened: Are you happy now?

Sure, nearly everyone who has a Facebook account has weighed in on the matter of Reyes’ suicide. And many of them seem perfectly willing to proclaim that the former defense chief was guilty as charged and must now be burning in hell.

But that would be assuming that Reyes was indeed guilty—and, furthermore, that he is the only one guilty in an institution that now seems rotten to the very core. And that is an assumption that not even Reyes’ tormentors in Congress will be able to make with any degree of confidence.

Of course, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Antonio Trillanes, Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez and all the other people who piled on Reyes can say that it was the ex-defense chief who aimed the gun to his chest and pulled the trigger. If he could not stand the heat, what the hell was he doing in the kitchen anyway?

But to say that none of them helped kill Reyes is to pretend that the suicide happened in a vacuum, as if he took drugs or was insane. And we certainly know that this was not the case.

Indeed, we can imagine anyone who feels he or she has been unfairly pilloried in the Senate or the House during these chambers’ many investigations must have felt that suicide was a viable option. And any honest appraisal of the inherent unfairness and ultimate worthlessness (as far as ferreting out guilt or crafting laws) of our congressional investigations would certainly make us want to sympathize with them.

A Senate or House probe, after all, is never like an actual court of law, where even people like Andal Ampatuan, pere et fils, can expect a modicum of fairness and a presumption of guilt before it is clearly and incontrovertibly established. In nearly all cases, such investigations have long been decided before the first hearing is even scheduled, by lawmakers who have axes to grind against the people they intend to summon, humiliate and eventually destroy.

But Congress does this all the time, it can be argued. And Reyes could have toughed it out like everyone else given the same treatment, knowing full well that while his honor and reputation may be dragged through the mud, he will eventually get out of the Senate or the House in one piece and on his own power.

But that is precisely why Angelo Reyes, whose guilt or innocence was never established (because the pursuit of either was never really the goal), is different. He simply decided, rightly or wrongly, that he had enough and that he saw no other end to the suffering and pain but to end his own life.

Reyes may be guilty as charged or entirely innocent. We’ll never really know.
We can only hope that the people who cannot hide their happiness over Angelo Reyes’ death can say to themselves that they value their reputations as much as he did. And that, even if they were somewhere else far away, they didn’t have anything to do with pushing him over the edge.”