MANILA - Former Senate President Franklin Drilon paid tribute to the late President Corazon Aquino after she succumbed to colon cancer Saturday.

Drilon, who served under the Aquino Cabinet before running for senator in 1995, said the nation had "lost a great leader in Aquino."

"We grieve for the family and for the nation. We lost a great leader. We need her today but even in death she has united all of us," Drilon said in an ANC interview.

He said Aquino's death had come as a shock to him even though the former president had been in the hospital since June 25. "A part of me had died this morning," he said. 

Drilon said he had often been asked what made Aquino such a rallying point for Filipinos even upon her retirement in 1992. "It is her moral leadership, it is her religiosity, it is her sincerity. Only the welfare of the people in our country was the motivating factor in all that she did. Some may have disagreed with her but I could assure everyone that President Cory was the most sincere person I have kown in my life," he said.

"She's a hero to all of us. Personally, she's my hero," he said.

Mrs. Aquino died at 3:18 a.m., August 1 at the age of 76.

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