THE entertainment Industry woke up on Sunday morning shocked and saddened to learn that veteran movie and television director Maryo J de los Reyes had passed.

His brother Manny de los Reyes broke the news in a Facebook post.

“To all our relatives and friends it is with great shock, disbelief, pain and extreme sadness to inform you that my brother Direk Maryo J. de los Reyes has recently passed away. The entire de los Reyes and Jorolan families are mourning his loss and request all to say a prayer and especially the media to be respectful of our current grief and sorrow at this time,” it read.

According to a report from GMA Network, de los Reyes succumbed to a heart attack on Saturday night in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte while attending a party there. No other details are available yet.

De los Reyes is a prolific director who was most noted for the movie “Magnifico” in 2003, which won the prestigious Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival the following year.

Active in the teleserye scene as well, de los Reyes was supposed to direct GMA’s upcoming drama series “Hindi Ko Kayang Iwan Ka,” starring Yasmien Kurdi and Mike Tan.

The last movie of de los Reyes was Star Cinema’s “The Unmarried Wife” in 2016, which won lead star Dingdong Dantes a Best Actor of the Year from the Guillermo Mendoza Memorial Scholarship Foundation Box Office Entertainment Awards.

A former seminarian, de los Reyes who began his movie career in 1970s, studied Film at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, and constantly made an effort to bring inspirational stories to both the small and big screens. TESSA MAURICIO-ARRIOLA