Very sad news indeed that Cory Aquino has fairly advanced colon cancer. I have been screening for colon cancer since 1994 and I have been telling everyone that they need to get a colonoscopy when they hit 50. As a former president and as one of the very few living Filipino heroes, Cory should have been scoped many years ago, it would have made sound medical sense and she would have provided an example for the rest of the country to follow. But now it may be too late.

Colon cancer enabled me to return to the Philippines. More important than the income I derived from performing many thousand colonoscopies was the singular lesson I learned from the diagnosis of the disease: that we must all die sometime and that at the end of one’s life, we will measure our lives by the amount of service we were able to give others.

To me, Cory Aquino is the greatest living Filipino. She is a shining representative of the heroic possibilities that a Filipino can possess. When duty called, she did not hesitate to make the necessary sacrifices. She did her best and she remained incorruptible long after she left office. Her integrity is unquestioned.

I join everyone in praying for Cory. Not that she has anything to fear. She has lived a pious life. She has given far more than she received.