By Carlos H. Conde

International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: March 24, 2008

MANILA: Corazon Aquino, the former Philippine leader who played a major role in the ouster of two of the country’s presidents, has been found to have colon cancer, her family announced Monday.

The ailment was discovered after Aquino, 75, underwent a series of medical tests because of hypertension and difficulty in breathing in December. Since then, her daughter Kristina Bernadette Aquino said at a news conference Monday, the former president had lost weight and suffered consistent coughing and a loss of appetite.

“The results showed that our mother is suffering cancer of the colon,” she said, adding that the former president decided to disclose her illness to the public because “our mother has always believed in being up-front.”

“It’s a very difficult time for our family, most especially for our mother,” she said. She did not provide other details of the medical findings. She called on Filipinos to pray for her mother.

The administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said it was saddened by the news.

“We are hoping for strength for her in the face of adversity,” said Ignacio Bunye, the press secretary.

Although Aquino stepped down from office when her term ended in 1992 - she had succeeded the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was deposed in the 1986 “people power” uprising that she had led - Aquino had remained in the political spotlight, playing a key part in the second “people power” movement that removed Joseph Estrada from the presidency in 2001.

More recently, Aquino participated in demonstrations calling for the resignation of Arroyo, whose government has been hounded by allegations of corruption and vote-rigging.

Educated in religious schools in Manila and in the United States, Aquino belongs to one of the richest landholding families in the Philippines.

She married Benigno Aquino Jr., a former journalist who became one of the youngest senators in the Philippines and the archrival of Marcos.

Benigno’s assassination in 1983 on his return from years of political exile in the United States provoked protests that ultimately led to Marcos’s fall from power. That event pushed Corazon, his widow, who was a homemaker at the time, to the country’s political center stage and a run for the presidency in 1986. When Marcos won by a slight margin in a vote widely regarded as fraudulent, a popular uprising swept him from power and into exile, and she was inaugurated.

She also began a movement to promote microenterprises and microfinancing in the Philippines, believing that empowering poor Filipinos by helping them start small businesses was a way to combat poverty.