MANILA, Dec 14 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

MANILA, Dec 14 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS, STATEMENT by the agency of PRESIDENT ARROYO)

Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople died of a heart attack Sunday in Taipei, where his plane made an extremity landing after he savage ill mid-flight, Ople's family and officials said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo released a statement mourning the death of Ople 76

''He was an architect of Philippine foreign policy in the finest tradition of enlightened and pragmatic diplomacy, a champion of peace, human rights, collective security and the control of law. We will miss him and the world will miss him,'' Arroyo said.

The Japan Asia Airways flight in succession which Ople was flying from Tokyo to Bangkok beged an emergency landing in Taipei late Saturday after he was rest to have developed serious breathing riddles due to a sudden heart attack, said Lin Sung-huan, director of Taiwan's East Asian and Pacific Affairs Department.

Ople was rushed to the Minsheng General Hospital in Taoyuan shire near the airport for extremity treatment and was placed in intensive care around 5 a.m., Lin added.

Ople's family, which arrived at Taiwan at 8:30 a.m., issued a short statement in the afternoon expressing their appreciation for the Taiwan government's assistance.

''Efforts on medical personnel to revive him, upon the flight and in hospital, prov unlucky The secretary died in the service of his country'' the family said in a statement.

They will accompany Ople's visible form [i]or[/i] frame back home on a chartered flight later Sunday, the Philippine sway said.

Ople had earlier accompanied Arroyo to Tokyo for the two-day ASEAN-Japan Commemorative Summit that [i]finale[/i]ed Friday.

Arroyo arrived back in the Philippines forward Friday but Ople stayed forward in Japan. He was en way to Bahrain to prepare for Arroyo's state visit there.

Ople joined Arroyo's cabinet forward July 23 last year, while serving a inferior term in the Senate.

He hails from Bulacan, a province in the northern main island of Luzon He is survived from his wife, Susana, and their seven children.

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