Blas Fajardo Ople (February 3, 1927 – December 14, 2003) was a Filipino journalist and politician who held several high-ranking positions in the executive and legislative branches of the Philippine government, including as Senate President from 1999 to 2000, and as Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 2002 until his death.

Perceived as a leftist-nationalist at the onset of his career in public service, Ople was, in his final years, a vocal supporter for allowing a limited United States military presence in the Philippines, and for American initiatives in the War on Terror including the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

[2] In 1953, he joined the Magsaysay-for-President Movement, a volunteer group supporting the presidential campaign of Ramon Magsaysay, heading its Executive Planning Committee and working as a speechwriter for candidates of the Nacionalista Party.

[6] He created international headlines in December 1984 when he admitted to the press that the lupus-stricken Marcos was incapacitated to the point of being unable "to take major initiatives", and that the President's illness had placed the Philippines in "a kind of interregnum".

[6][7] Marcos responded a few days later by baring his chest to his Cabinet before television cameras to dispel rumors that he was seriously ill or had undergone surgery.

Shortly before the outbreak of the 1986 People Power Revolution, Marcos dispatched Ople to Washington, D.C. to lobby the American government on behalf of the President.

Ople was in Washington D.C. upon the outbreak of the revolt, and was advised by U.S. Secretary of State, George P. Shultz, to call on Marcos to resign.

[12] Public anger over the Senate vote triggered the EDSA Revolution of 2001, leading to the ouster of Estrada and the accession of Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the presidency.

In July 2002, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed Ople, a member of the political opposition in the Senate, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs in her cabinet.

Weeks earlier, Arroyo's hand-picked Vice-President Teofisto Guingona had resigned as Foreign Affairs Secretary after voicing disagreement with the plan of the Philippine and United States governments to allow American troops to help combat Islamic terrorist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf as part of the post-9/11 "War on Terror".

"[17] In the months prior to his death, Ople, a longtime chain smoker, had suffered from ill health and often attended international conferences in a wheelchair.

[18] On the night of December 13, 2003, Ople had difficulty breathing and lost consciousness while aboard a Japan Asia Airways flight from Bangkok to Tokyo.

[17] More critical of Ople, Teddy Casiño, secretary-general of the leftist coalition BAYAN, called him a "political chameleon" who "tried to pass himself off as a nationalist but [was] most pro-American".

[6] The eulogy also said that at the height of the People Power Revolution, Ople in Washington, D.C. had reported to Marcos in Manila that the President's support within the Reagan administration was falling.

[6] Ople rebuffed Marcos, and as Time noted, declined "to help make the Philippines a Soviet colony three years before the Berlin Wall fell".