RIP Former President Cory Aquino

Former Philippine leader and democracy icon Corazon Aquino died Saturday following a cardiac arrest after battling colon cancer for more than a year, her son announced. She was 76.
"Our mother peacefully passed away at 3:18 am, August 1, 2009 of cardio-respiratory arrest," Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, said in a statement outside the Makati Medical Centre in Manila, where his mother had been hospitalised.

"She would have wanted us to thank each and every one of you for all the prayers and the continuous love and support," he said.

"It was her wish for all of us to pray for one another and for the country," Aquino said.
A close family friend, Boy Abunda, said funeral arrangements would be announced later in the day. He said Aquino had been surrounded by members of her immediate family when she died.
Friends and foes offered their condolences to the family, while the politically influential Roman Catholic church held special requiem masses.

Presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde said the government was declaring a "period of national mourning" as arrangements for a state funeral for Aquino were being made.
Oscar Cruz, a member of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said Aquino was "God's greatest gift to us (Filipinos)."

"She symbolised freedom, justice and what is right," Cruz said. "Now that she has died, she is much bigger in memory. Let us thank God for giving us Tita (Aunt) Cory," he said, referring to the nickname by which the public fondly referred to Aquino.

Corazon Aquino was thrust into the whirlwind of high-stakes Philippine politics in 1983 when her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., flew back to his homeland from self-exile in the United States only to be shot dead as he stepped off his plane at Manila airport.
His murder triggered massive ‘People Power’ street protests that culminated three years later in the toppling of longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had ruled the Philippines for 20 years with an iron hand.

Mrs Aquino was installed as president shortly after Marcos and his wife Imelda fled to Hawaii.
Best known as ‘Cory’, she was regarded as a symbol of the country's return to democracy, although her six-year term was marked by several bloody coup attempts.
Mrs Aquino was also a moral crusader -- after her presidential term ended in 1992, she kepot up her fight for reform, particularly against corruption.

In 2001 she also helped mobilize street protests against then President Joseph Estrada, an action movie hero self-confessed former womanizer and heavy drinker, who was ousted and charged with plundering a fortune through graft.
She reconciled with Estrada last year, and both of them joined street protests against current President Gloria Arroyo, whose family has also been accused of massive corruption.