Blas Ople
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Blas F. Ople (February 3 1927 - December 14 2003) was a Filipino political figure. He died aboard an aircraft en route to Dubai which made an emergency landing at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (near Taipei, Taiwan), where medical personnel were unable to save him.
After high school at the Far Eastern University in 1948, he studied liberal arts at the University of the Philippines and Manuel L. Quezon University. He graduated with a liberal arts degree at the Educational Center of Asia (formerly Quezon College) in Manila.
Starting as a journalist, Ople was one of the youngest columnists in the era considered one of the most golden in journalism. He wrote the light and breezy column, "Jeepney Tales", for the Daily Mirror, sister publication of the old Manila Times. He eventually made his way to politics, where he was a close aide of then-president Ferdinand Marcos.
He was Minister of Labor from 1967 to 1986 under Marcos (with a small break, 1971 - 1972). An author of the 1987 Constitution, Ople was elected to the senate in 1992, and was senate president 1999-2000. In 2002 he was made Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs by president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
He is best remembered as one of the revered statesmen of the Philippines.