Top Manila minister Ople dies
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Foreign Secretary Blas Ople.
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MANILA, Philippines -- Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople died after having trouble breathing aboard a flight to Dubai, according to a statement from his family released Sunday.
He was traveling with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Japan for a defense meeting, before departing late Saturday for a state visit to Dubai, according to the statement, read by the undersecretary of the Foreign Affairs Department.
Efforts to revive him on the plane failed and the aircraft made an unscheduled landing in Taipei, Taiwan where he was hospitalized, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told CNN.
The statement said he died of natural causes. Ople, aged 76, was a heavy smoker with a history of heart problems.
Medical staff at Taoyuan's Minsheng Hospital gave Ople emergency treatment but failed to save him, hospital officials said, according to The Associated Press.
Shih said Ople's family members arrived from Manila on Sunday.
Another Foreign Ministry official, Lin Sung-huan, told reporters at Minsheng Hospital that Ople's family members were informed of his death Saturday night.
Ople was one of the most senior members of President Arroyo's Cabinet.
Before Arroyo named him to her cabinet three years ago, he served in a variety of political positions, including a senator and as labor secretary under former President Ferdinand Marcos.
Ople relinquished his Senate post in July last year when Arroyo appointed him as foreign secretary, replacing Teofisto Guingona, concurrently the country's vice president, with whom Arroyo had a spat over his opposition to the U.S. military presence in the Philippines.
Although ailing because of a lung ailment and constantly coughing because of his heavy smoking, Ople dealt with major foreign policy issues, including the Philippines' decision to allow American counterterrorist training forces in the country, a tiff with Malaysia over its crackdown on Filipino illegal migrant workers, and Manila's support of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Ople led senators who approved the ratification of a pact with Washington called the Visiting Forces Agreement, which allowed the resumption of large-scale U.S. military exercises and port visits in the Philippines. Left-wing groups denounced him for his pro-U.S. stance.
Ople was also a vocal leader in the traditionally conservative Association of Southeast Asian Nations, espousing more democratic reforms and the release from house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in military-ruled Myanmar.
The son of a poor boat maker from the northern Philippine province of Bulacan, Ople was also a book author and journalist and a longtime columnist of the Manila Bulletin newspaper.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
