Fil-Am breast cancer victim keeps promise

DALY CITY, Calif.  - Rhona Labao- Palencia was as brave as she was beautiful, say relatives who call her their "Princess Warrior" for her fighting spirit.  
 
For 13 years, the second daughter of Amor Araullo and the late Virgilio Labao battled breast cancer, unwilling to yield to the disease that claims the lives of 200,000 women in the United States every year.
 
When she was diagnosed at age 31, Labao-Palencia challenged her illness, praised her aunt Marilyn Camilosa.  The accounting graduate of San Francisco State University chose to primp up and look forward to each new morning.
 
"When she awoke from her mastectomy, the first thing she asked for was her trademark red lipstick," Camilosa told Philippine News.    
 
While the survival rate for the disease is lower for women diagnosed under the age of 40, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, Labao-Palencia exceeded life expectancy.  
 
Later diagnosed as terminal, she rallied for seven long years where others lasted mere months.  She lost her fight July 11.
 
"Rhona was our Princess Warrior," Camilosa said while coordinating a memorial for Saturday, August 2, at St. Thomas More in San Francisco, the same church where Labao-Palencia shared her professional skills the rest of her brief life.  
 
Learning her fate, Labao-Palencia had devoted herself to the Our Lady of Compassion and Protection Ministries, a  Christian fellowship based in Union City.  She attended every milestone her large family celebrated, especially the birthdays of her nephews on whom she doted. 

When she lost her hair from chemotherapy and radiation, she invested in scarves and beanies.  
She indulged in her favorite activities - shopping and watching movies - always dressed up looking in the peak of health.  
 
"Once we were shopping in Daly City and a police officer came up to us and asked for Rhona's ID, unconvinced she was eligible for disabled parking," recalled Camilosa.
 
A trained accountant, Labao-Palencia offered to keep financial books at St. Thomas More.
 
She loved her volunteer work and was sad when her health forced her to discontinue, said Camilosa, youngest sister of Labao-Palencia's mother and co-publisher of Philippines Today, a weekly newspaper based in San Bruno.
 
"The cancer spread to her spinal cord, preventing her from sitting or standing for long periods."
 
By the time she was bedridden, the ailing bookkeeper had forged friendships with the appreciative parish staff, especially the pastor, who became her and her husband Gil Palencia's spiritual counsel.
 
"She confided in her older sister Mylene that she Father Labib promised to say goodbye to each other and that whoever passed on first would return for the other when the time had come," Camilosa told PNews.  The friends honored that vow.
 
St. Thomas More pastor Monsignor Labib Kobti turned out to share the health challenges of the woman whom he called "my daughter," that may have fostered their kinship.  
 
On July 9, Rhona's family called the parish to request Kobti to go to the hospital and bless Labao-Palencia, and Camilosa said he immediately arrived and anointed her.  The following day, they sought Kobti again for another blessing because Rhona appeared to be slipping away.
 
Camilosa and her sisters were shocked to hear that Kobti himself had to be confined just hours before at UC San Francisco Medical Center, a few floors from Labao-Palencia.
 
"Mylene rushed to see him and found him writhing in pain," Camilosa related.  "He had had stomach surgery but declined painkillers because he said he wanted to offer his suffering to Rhona."
 
Their friendship, Labao-Palencia's family realized, was beyond temporal. They found out just how deeply the priest cared for their loved one when despite his condition he asked to be wheeled to Rhona's room to visit. —Philippine News