Former Philippine president Corazon Aquino is suffering from colon cancer, her daughter said on Monday.

In an emotional address on national television network ABS-CBN News, daughter Kris Aquino said her 75-year-old mother had been hospitalized for tests after suffering from high blob pressure, difficulty breathing and fever during the Christmas and New Year holidays, then a loss of appetite and weight loss, the Associated Press reports.

“The result showed our mother is suffering from cancer of the colon. We know that the life of our family is already part of our country’s history. It was our mother’s decision for us to come out with this statement. Our mother, like all patients…needs time to rest. We respectfully ask she be accorded her privacy. We ask you for your compassion and prayers for our mom’s recovery,” Kris‘s statement wrote.

Aquino, known as Cory to millions of Filipinos, was president from 1986 to 1992, but she remained in people’s memory more than two decades after the fact, as the slim woman in yellow who led the “People Power” revolution that toppled Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos fled the country and died in Hawaii in 1989. Aquino survived at least six coup attempts by the military keeping the administration hamstrung during her presidency.

Although she finished her term as president in 1992, Aquino has never actually quitted the public affairs. She has been active in various movements, the latest being a large scale demonstration to demand encumber president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's resignation over corruption scandals.

“I thought my work was done because I am already old. But this is what the times ask for, for us to unite so that the deceit will end and we will find out the truth,” Aquino addressed tens of thousands of people last month from a makeshift stage in front of a statue of her husband in Manila’s Makati financial district, Reuters reports.