Abunda: Family stayed close to Cory until end
Posted By www.BoyAbunda.net on July 31, 2009
MANILA – Family members of former President Corazon Aquino stayed close to the president until her death in the wee hours of Saturday, August 1, after a more than year-long battle with colon cancer.
TV host Boy Abunda, a close friend of Aquino’s youngest daughter, Kris, said Mrs. Aquino died peacefully in her sleep.
“We would like to confirm that at 3:18 a.m, the former president died very peacefully in her sleep. Close friends and family were there. Her children prayed the rosary after she died and then a Mass was officiated by Fr. Catalino Arevalo,” Abunda told radio dzMM.
He said Aquino was not in any pain during her final days. He added that the Aquino family will announce details of the former president’s wake at a press conference around 11 a.m.
Deedee Siytangco, Aquino’s former spokeswoman, said Aquino’s death had also brought a miracle to the country by uniting the Filipino people in prayer.
“I’m sad. I’m grieving that my friend and boss is gone. But she lived a life that I think all of us should learn from. All these healing masses, do you know who has been healed? I think it is us, those who are close to her. And I think she, feeling that people really rallied around her and prayed and we all went down on our knees for prayer, that to her was already a miracle,” Siytangco said in a separate ANC interview.
She said Mass will be held at the end of the 40-hour prayer vigil or Quarantore at the EDSA Shrine at Saturday noon. Hundreds of people attended the 40-hour vigil to pray for Aquino’s recovery.
Siytangco said Aquino purposely did not tell close friends about her true condition, saying that the former president “knew that her time had come.”
She said Aquino considered every day as a gift and that even the day of her death was a blessing.
“The Lord took her on a first Saturday, our Lady’s day, and she was a Marian devotee. This is her Saturday and it is traditionally Mary’s day. She died with a rosary. I think the last time I saw her, she was clutching a rosary. She was at peace. She was ready,” she said. — reports from dzMM, ANC
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First Posted: abs-cbnnews.com
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