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'Blas Fajardo Ople' (February 3 1927 – December 14 2003), Senator of the Philippines from 1992-2002 and Philippine Secretary (Minister) of Labor and Employment from 1967-1986, was born on February 3, 1927 in Hagonoy, Bulacan. He graduated validictorian in the grade school at the Hagonoy Elementary School in 1941. In 1948, he finished his high school at the Far Eastern University. He pursued a degree in liberal arts at the Educational Center of Asia (formerly Quezon College) in Manila.
In 1954, he joined the government as special assistant to the Secretary of Labor and technical assistant on labor and agrarian affairs (of President Ramon Magsaysay) from 1954 to 1957. He was also a writer and columnist of the Manila Times.
In 1965 he was appointed as Social Security Commissioner by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. In 1967, he was appointed Secretary of Labor and Employment (in 1978, the position was renamed Minister of Labor and Employment), a position which he held until 1986 (except for a small break in 1971-1972). As Labor Secretary, he was instrumental in the framing of the Labor Code of the Philippines.
In 1978, Ople was elected member of the Interim Batasang Pambansa representing Central Luzon and was reelected in the 1984 regular Batasang Pambansa. Ople also served as political campaign manager of President Marcos in the 1986 Snap Elections.
After the peaceful People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos regime, President Corazon Aquino appointed Ople as one of the members of the Constitutional Commission, which was tasked to frame a new constitution.
Ople ran for senator (under the pro-Marcos Grand Alliance for Democracy coalition) and loss in the 1987 congressional elections. In 1992, he ran again for senator (under the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino and won. In 1998, he was reelected again. As a Senator, he became Senate President Pro-tempore from 1998-1999, Senate President from 1999-2000, and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was one of the proponents of the 1999 RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement and one of the 11 senator-judges that denied the opening of the 2nd envelope during the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada in 2001.
Despite being in the opposition, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appointed Ople as Secretary of Foreign Affairs in 2002. He held the position until his death on December 14, 2003.^{[1] [2]}He was 76.

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1. http://www.iht.com/articles/2003/12/16/t3_2.php
2. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2003/12/15/news/blas.ople.succumbs.to.heart.attack.html