First Asian female president Corazon “Cory” Aquino dead

August 1st, 2009 - 4:53 am ICT by John Le Fevre  

Corazon Cory Aquino Asia’s first female President, former Philippines first lady Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino, has died aged 76 from colon cancer.

Aquino, who led the people power revolution that ended the 20-year rule of late Philippines strongman Ferdinand Marcos, was the 11th and first female president of the Philippines, serving from 1986 to 1992 and repelled seven coup attempts in her six years in office.

Along with a string of international awards and honors, in 1984 Aquino was cited as one of 100 Women Who Shaped World History and in 1986 was Time’s Woman of the year as well as a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

For the last month Aquino has been confined to Makati Medical Center fighting stage-four colon cancer and news of her death spread throughout the Philippines by SMS or text messages.

In Manila where a mass was being held for Aquino, several of her former Cabinet members received the message, with former Philippines Supreme Court justice Adolf Azcun making the announcement at the end of the service.

Aquino was first diagnosed with cancer in 2008 and told she only had three months to live, however, aggressive chemotherapy extended that until earlier this months when she was admitted to hospital due to loss of appetite.

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