Prayers pour in for Philippine ex-President Corazon Aquino

The 76-year-old democracy icon was admitted to the ICU of the Makati Medical Center last week after she stopped eating, spokeswoman Deedee Sytangco said.

“She's stable and she's conscious,” Sytangco told The Associated Press. She refused to provide details and Aquino's family appealed for “solitude and privacy.”

Sytangco said Aquino was moved to a regular room.

The former president was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer last year. She had been undergoing chemotherapy, but was no longer receiving treatment, Sytangco said.

Aquino's former Cabinet members, friends and supporters gathered at a chapel near the hospital for the second day of nine days of noon Masses offering prayers for her recovery.

Even Aquino's political nemesis wished her well.

Bejeweled former first lady Imelda Marcos, whose late husband Ferdinand was deposed by a 1986 “people power” revolt that catapulted Aquino to power, marked her 80th birthday with a short prayer for Aquino — whose administration she has derided in the past.

“Cory Aquino is fighting for her life. Let us pray for her health,” Marcos said before she bowed her head.

In an interview last month, she called Aquino a “usurper” and a “dictator.”

U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney said the American people are inspired by Aquino's personal strength.

“She's been a strong person ... for this country for so many years,” she said.

Aquino was a humble homemaker propelled to politics by the 1983 assassination of her husband, opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. She later led a peaceful uprising in 1986 that toppled late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and became a harbinger of nonviolent protests around the world.

She stepped down in 1992 but remained active in social and political causes. Before her illness, she joined protest rallies calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over allegations of vote-rigging and corruption.

Among those who attended Mass for Aquino's recovery was former President Joseph Estrada — who was ousted on corruption charges and replaced by Arroyo in the country's second “people power” revolt in 2001.

Arroyo's spokesman Cerge Remonde said the president and her Cabinet “offer our fervent prayers.”

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