Former Philippine leader and democracy icon Corazon Aquino died Saturday following a cardiac arrest after battling colon cancer for more than a year, her son announced. She was 76.

"Our mother peacefully passed away at 3:18 am, August 1, 2009 of cardio-respiratory arrest," Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, said in a statement outside the Makati Medical Centre in Manila, where his mother had been hospitalised.