VANCOUVER, Canada: OPM legend and now Filipino Canadian singer Joey Albert has confirmed her battle with new cancer.
- Singer Joey Albert was first diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1995.
- She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003, survived on two illnesses that interrupted her career.
Albert’s daughter Trixie Pacis, Filipino-Canadian was part of the Philippine women’s rugby team that won bronze at the recent SEA Games in Singapore. Pacis who was at an awarding ceremony at Consulate in Vancouver.
Singer Joey Albert and daughter Pacis, celebrating the moment meant much more ever since Albert was diagnosed with cancer again.
On January 28, 2015, medical tests confirmed that Albert’s cancer had recurred. Despite being in pain, Singer Joey Albert struggled to put up a brave front during her Valentine concert with The Company last Feb. 13 and 14, 2015 at the Music Museum in the Philippines, two weeks after her colon cancer was diagnosed to have recurred.
After Music Museum, Singer Joey Albert did five more shows for the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) in major cities across the Philippines. However, she was forced to apologize for her inability to do another show in Cebu. Philippine Star reported that, at the end of her third PAGCOR show, Albert suffered from dehydration and was informed that she might have enough strength for only one long trip. Soon after, she rushed back to Canada in time for her medical procedure. Albert had a successful surgery on March 27, 2015.
Albert said,”You have to see these little things as the most important things in life. So, time is the most important thing in life. Not money, not career. Time.”
She is currently going through chemo therapy. Friends and fans got a glimpse of her ongoing battle as she shares part of it on Facebook. While some go through their fight privately, Albert insists to do otherwise.
“I really thought that the last time was the last. But I do try to keep positive because I feel that it’s really the best medicine. I think that if I lend myself to all these fears, I’ll slip,” she said.
Joey Albert is a Filipino pop and jazz singer, musician, lyricist, and songwriter. An alumna of St. Theresa’s College Manila and Assumption College San Lorenzo, she began her professional singing career in 1982, right after winning the Dream Girl Filipina contest in “The Party”, a television program hosted by Ariel Ureta over the now defunct Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation. Soon after, Albert became a member of the The New Minstrels (3rd Generation), a popular Philippine show band during the 1970s and the 1980s. Apart from Albert, The New Minstrels also produced many other outstanding Filipino musical artists.
Albert, also collaborated with other well-known Filipino artists such as Jose Mari Chan and Pops Fernandez. As a multi-awarded singer, her discography boasts more than 20 studio albums.
Since 1994, Albert has been living in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband Vicente Pacis III and their two children. On Shaw Multicultural Channel 116 (Vancouver), Albert hosted “The Joey Albert Show”, a magazine talk show that featured stories and interviews with Filipinos in Canada. Aside from singing and hosting, Albert raises funds for Gawad Kalinga, a Philippine-based group that builds homes for the poor. Albert also owns and operates “The Good Shepherd Daycare”, a Catholic daycare and preschool in Coquitlam, a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada.
Albert spearheaded fundraising efforts for Typhoon Haiyan in the Vancouver metropolitan area. Tickets to her shows were by donation to the Canadian Red Cross. She also finished another reunion concert with the New Minstrels and the Circus Band at the Music Museum on February 2014.IMAGE/twitter
