[PHNO-sb] RIO DIAZ CURED, SAYS SISTER GLORIA
PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
(Gloria Diaz reveals `miracle' to Inquirer's L.S. Gatdula)
Manila, April 11, 1999 - This is a story that's perfect for Sunday morning,
before or after Mass. The Inquirer's Leah Salterio Gatdula got it straight
from actress-beauty queen Gloria Diaz that her younger sister Rio has been
cured of cancer.
Rio, former movie star and television host, was diagnosed with cancer of the
colon last December, barely six months after she was elected vice mayor of
Pontevedra town in Negros Occidental.
News of her grave illness shocked the political, business and entertainment
circles. She continues to be flooded with letters of support and prayers.
Gatdula reports that Rio`s oncologist, Dr. George Fisher, at Stanford
Hospital in San Francisco, recently found that her cancer cells were simply
gone.
Rio, according to Gloria, quoted the doctor as telling her: ''Rio, we know
you are sunshine to this place. But it is going to be against our conscience
if we don't tell you. Four days ago, we tested you and we found out you may
be free to go. You can just finish the treatment this month and you can go
home.''
''She was declared well,'' Gloria said. ''It's really difficult to explain.
We were all shouting and grabbing the phone here when she called to tell us
the good news. We had to call her three times yesterday and Rio repeated
what the doctors told her 20 times. We didn't get tired of hearing the story.''
Rio was with her three other sisters Aurora, Didith and Coroy in San
Francisco when Fisher told them the good news.
Rio is married to Congressman Charlie Cojuangco, son of controversial
industrialist Danding Cojuangco. They have two children--Claudia, 4; and
Jaime Eduardo, 2. Rio has a son, Ali, from a previous marriage to singer
Hajji Alejandro. Rio is the youngest of the 12 Diaz children--10 girls and
two boys.
When the cancer was detected, Rio wanted to go on TV to talk about it, 'If
I don't tell people how sick I am, when God cures me they will not realize
what He has done to me, that a miracle has happened.''' But her sisters
prevailed upon her not to discuss her illness in public.
Prayers sustained Rio during the past four months, Gloria said. ''She spent
unbelievable time in prayer. It's not just because she was sick. Even
before, she really prayed a lot--for her diet, for her to lose weight, for
every decision she had to make. She never thought she was not going to be
healed. She was sure she would be well again.''
''She has a cheery disposition. She constantly writes thank-you letters to
the friends and strangers who had been sending her get-well messages and
flowers,'' Gloria added.
Rio has kept the tokens of good wishes and hope that she has received--holy
water, leaflets from pilgrimages, rosaries, oils, even bits of bones said
to have belonged to saints.
''Rio just kept them but she never believed in them,'' Gloria said. ''She
only prayed to God.''
Her mother-in-law, Gretchen Cojuangco, is known to bring Rio a new outfit
and vegetables almost every day, in an effort to lift her spirits.
Gloria said that since 1986, Rio has dutifully given tithing to the church.
Rio is expected to complete her treatment at Stanford by the end of April
and plans to return to Manila in the middle of May.
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