<figure class="image-550">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-299/magsaysay-aguinaldo.webp"  alt="Ramon Magsaysay with General Aguinaldo" />
<figcaption>
President <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/558/today-in-philippine-history-august-31-1907-ramon-magsaysay-seventh-president-of-the-philippines-was-born-in-iba-zambales" class="news_link">Ramon Magsaysay</a> and General Aguinaldo (right) taken on September 15, 1956, on the commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the opening of the Malolos Congress.
</figcaption>
</figure>

<h2>
Long illness and final days
</h2>

<p>
Aguinaldo had been in increasingly fragile health in the early 1960s. On <time datetime="1962-10-05">October 5, 1962</time>, he was rushed to the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City and placed under the care of Dr. Juana Blanco Fernández. He remained confined there for 469 days until his death, spending most of his final years in the hospital, nearly blind and unable to walk.
</p>
<p>
His second wife, <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1152/today-in-philippine-history-may-29-1963-maria-agoncillo-died-at-the-veterans-memorial-hospital-quezon-city" class="news_link">María Agoncillo de Aguinaldo</a>, died at the same hospital on <time datetime="1963-05-29">May 29, 1963</time>, at the age of 82, less than a year before him. Widowed and increasingly infirm, Aguinaldo lived out his remaining months under close medical supervision, receiving visits from family, veterans of the revolution, and public officials.
</p>
<p>
Although he had distanced himself from the Catholic Church for a time during his struggle against Spanish rule, he reconciled with the Church in his later years. Shortly before his death, he received the sacrament of the last rites from the Catholic chaplain at the hospital.
​</p>

<h2>
National mourning and state funeral
</h2>
<p>
News of Aguinaldo's death reverberated throughout the country. On the same day, President <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/645/today-in-philippine-history-september-28-1910-diosdado-p-macapagal-was-born-in-lubao-pampanga" class="news_link">Diosdado Macapagal</a> issued Administrative Order No. 89, creating a special committee to take charge of the official necrological services and state funeral for the late General Emilio Aguinaldo. The committee included cabinet secretaries, senators, justices, military officers, and representatives of the Aguinaldo family, underscoring the importance of the occasion.
​</p>



February 6, 1964: General Emilio Aguinaldo died at the Veterans Memorial Hospital