FORMER President Corazon Aquino is suffering from colon cancer, her family said yesterday.

The 75-year-old icon of People Power was diagnosed with the disease two weeks ago, her daughter Kris said in an emotional announcement aired over national television.

Aquino was last seen in public in the Easter mass at the St. Joseph's College in Quezon City. She was seated beside Rodolfo "Jun" Lozada, the star witness in the Senate hearings on the NBN-ZTE broadband deal, as in practically all Masses for the truth about the corruption scandal which have been held for the last two months in Metro Manila

By VERA Files
(Last of two parts)

A month before the May 13, 2009 deadline, the Philippine government intends to submit a claim before the United Nations over its extended continental shelf, which scientists and legal experts say include the resource-rich Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and other disputed territories.

If the UN upholds this claim, the Philippines would have the exclusive right to exploit the KIG's vast natural resources, including an estimated 200 billion barrels of oil. The KIG is part of the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea which are being claimed wholly or in part by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

The huge amounts of oil, natural gas, minerals and polymetals, such as gold, silver, iron and nickel, off the seas of the KIG could "greatly contribute to the growth of the economy and uplift the socio-economic condition of the Philippines," said the University of the Philippines Institute of International Legal Studies (UP-IILS).