Cancer is a traitor: A mother’s quiet fight

Cancer does not announce itself as an enemy. It arrives quietly, disguising itself as fatigue, pain, or something that can wait until tomorrow. By the time it reveals its true nature, it has already taken ground. That is what makes cancer a traitor.

For Jenina Mago, the betrayal came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when hospitals were strained, movement was restricted, and fear lingered in every waiting room. She battled ovarian cancer for more than a year, long enough to understand its cruelty, but never enough to make peace with leaving.

Jenina died on 22 February 2023, at the age of 54, less than a month before her birthday. In 18 days, her family will mark her third death anniversary. Time moves forward, but the absence she left behind has not learned how to.

She was afraid of death, not for herself, but for what it would mean for her children. She spoke often of responsibilities unfinished, of milestones she still wanted to witness.

She wanted to see her son graduate from the University of the Philippines. She wanted to see her daughter complete medical school at St. Luke’s College of Medicine. Most of all, she worried about the youngest she would leave behind, a child just seven years old when cancer finally won.

Cancer, in its treachery, does not negotiate. It does not care about plans, dreams, or how desperately a mother wants to stay. It weakens the body while sharpening the fear, forcing families to watch as someone they love fights a battle that no amount of courage can guarantee winning.

During her illness, Jenina endured treatments and hospital visits while the world outside was masked and distanced. Goodbyes were shortened. Comfort was rationed. Even grief, when it came, had to be quiet.

She fought anyway.

She fought knowing the odds. She fought knowing time was not on her side. She fought because mothers do not surrender easily – not when children are still growing, not when futures are still imagined.

On World Cancer Day, stories like Jenina’s are often reduced to numbers: cases, survival rates, mortality statistics. But cancer is not a statistic. It is a thief of time. It is a traitor that pretends to be manageable until it is not. It takes parents from children and leaves families to carry memories in place of presence.

For her son, Jason Mago, now associate online head of the DAILY TRIBUNE, the loss is both deeply personal and painfully universal. It is the story of countless families who watched cancer take someone who still had so much life left to live.

Jenina did not lose because she was weak. She lost because cancer does not fight fair.

And that is why remembering matters.

On World Cancer Day, her story stands as a quiet truth: cancer is a traitor, but a mother’s love remains undefeated.