Former Philippine president Corazon Aquino, who is battling colon cancer, has decided to forgo further chemotherapy or any other medical treatment, her spokeswoman was quoted yesterday as saying.
The 76-year-old Aquino, who led the Philippines from 1986 to 1992 after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, was admitted to a Manila hospital last week and is reportedly being fed intravenously.
“The country’s icon of democracy is fighting the hardest battle of her life,” spokeswoman Deedee Siytangco wrote in an article published in the Manila Bulletin.
Siytangco said Aquino had been moved to a private room, in a decision “she and her children made in consultation with her doctors.”
Family members have rushed to her bedside, she added.
“She is no longer receiving any chemotherapy or any other medical interventions,” she said, quoting a family member.
Members of the Aquino family and the former president’s doctors were not immediately available for comment. Reporters who converged at the hospital were asked to leave, an AFP photographer said.
Aquino has largely remained out of the public eye in recent months, with doctors fearing she may contract infections in her fragile state.
She had been undergoing chemotherapy and was previously hospitalized from March to May.
The murder of Aquino’s husband, Benigno Aquino Jr, in 1983 led to widespread street protests that culminated three years later in the toppling of Marcos, who had ruled the Philippines for 20 years with an iron hand.
Aquino was installed as president shortly thereafter.
She is regarded as a symbol of the country’s return to democracy, although her six-year term was marked by several bloody coup attempts.
Aquino is also known as a moral crusader — after her term ended in 1992, she continued to fight for various causes, including anti-corruption efforts.
Aquino helped mobilize street protests against former president Joseph Estrada, a self-confessed former womanizer and heavy drinker, who was ousted in 2001.
She reconciled with Estrada last year and both of them joined street protests against current President Gloria Arroyo, whose family has been accused of massive corruption.
Meanwhile, former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos turned 80 yesterday, claiming to be nearly broke but feeling vindicated more than two decades after her dictator husband was ousted in a popular revolt.
“I have reached the lucky number eight, for eight decades,” the flamboyant Marcos said as she distributed rice to hundreds of poor residents at a dump site converted into a sprawling housing area in a northern Manila suburb.
“My birthday wish is that I be given more health and a longer life, so I can devote myself to helping the Filipino poor,” she said.
Wearing a pink national dress, jade earrings and sporting a large diamond ring, the woman known worldwide for her excessive lifestyle and 3,000 pairs of shoes still has something of a regal presence.
Her burly bodyguards jostled with a pack of press photographers as she waded through the crowd of supporters wanting merely to touch her.
“I have always been at peace with the truth,” she said. “I feel vindicated because no court has convicted me.”
She said she is nearly broke after 23 years of “relentless persecution, vilification and ridicule” by the government, but remains happy that she has the support of her family and the poor.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
RSS