Laurel, 75, dies of cancer in US

Former Vice President Salvador "Doy" Laurel — who staunchly opposed the brutal Marcos dictatorship — died of cancer early yesterday, his staff announced. He was 75.

President Arroyo has directed Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo to inform the Laurel family that she wishes to accord the former vice president a state funeral "to give him due honor for his role in the fight for democracy during the Marcos dictatorship," Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.

It was not immediately known what arrangements have been made for Laurel’s funeral. Malacañang has offered that he be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, but the family was planning to cremate his remains as per Laurel’s request, and the ashes brought to his hometown in Tanauan, Batangas.

Laurel died at the Stanford Hospital and Clinics in San Francisco, where he had been undergoing medical treatment for lymphoma, or cancer of the lymphoid tissue.

The son of former President Jose Laurel and a doctor of law from Yale University, Laurel served under former President Corazon Aquino from 1986 to 1992. He was also a senator and briefly headed the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Laurel and Mrs. Aquino were sworn into office on Feb. 25, 1986, following the EDSA people power revolt that toppled late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

"He loved freedom and valiantly fought for it. He showed true statesmanship with his decision in 1986 when he joined forces with former President Corazon Aquino," Bunye said.

In the run-up to the February 1986 "snap" elections, Laurel, standard-bearer of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO), gave up his bid for the presidency in favor of Mrs. Aquino to avoid splitting the anti-Marcos vote and unify the political opposition.

Marcos won by fraud but a military mutiny triggered a massive civilian protest that sent the dictator to exile. Marcos died in Hawaii in 1989.

"Laurel was a true patriot who gave himself in the service of our beloved Philippines that he holds dear to his heart," former President Fidel Ramos said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by his death because we have just lost one of the strongest pillars and staunchest defenders of democracy in our country."

"His impeccable track record in public office is worth emulating," Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. said in a statement issued by his office. "May his legacy inspire our leaders and political candidates today."

Filipinos will elect a president, vice president, 12 senators, congressmen and local officials in May.

Mrs. Arroyo is seeking a full six-year term in the polls, the first sitting president since Marcos to seek a new term. The 1987 Constitution limits the president to a single six-year term.

She replaced the scandal-tainted Joseph Estrada who was toppled in 2001 by a popular uprising similar to the 1986 revolution that brought down Marcos.

In 1993, Laurel was appointed by then President Ramos — who led the 1986 mutiny with then Marcos defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile — to head the National Centennial Commission that oversaw preparations for the celebration of the country’s 100th independence anniversary in 1998.

But last March, he was charged with graft on suspicion he improperly awarded a contract to build a 35,000-seat amphitheater at the former US Clark air base in Pampanga and increased the budget for the construction almost fivefold.

The project — used as one of the venues for the centennial celebration — was awarded to the Asia Construction Development Authority, a private company, without a formal contract and without public bidding, the prosecutors said. Laurel also allegedly authorized an initial $7-million payment to the company.

The former vice president pleaded not guilty to the graft charges during his arraignment last June. The court allowed him to travel to San Francisco for medical treatment but asked him to post a travel bond.

Born on Nov. 18, 1928, Laurel was the son of the late Jose Laurel — who was installed as president of the Philippines by the Japanese occupation force during World War II — and Paciena Hidalgo, both natives of Tanauan, Batangas.

In the 1930s, Laurel’s father was a Supreme Court justice who once acquitted a young Ferdinand Marcos, then law graduate, who was accused of murdering, Julio Nalundasan, a political rival of his father.

Laurel’s grandfather, Sotero Remoquillo Laurel, was a delegate to the 1898 Malolos constitutional convention that framed the Philippines’ first constitution.

Laurel was elected senator in 1967 and authored several landmark laws. During the brutal Marcos dictatorship, he was elected assemblyman to the Batasang Pambansa in 1978.

On Sept. 16, 1983, he held the distinction of being the only lawmaker to resign from parliament in protest of the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino, husband of former President Aquino.

Laurel is survived by his wife Celia and their eight children. They were by his side when he died. — With Marichu Villanueva