Actress Liezel Martinez has finally opened up to the public about her battle with breast cancer.

Albert Martinez’s better half, who, together with the rest of her family, chose to keep mum on the issue for more than a year, recently gave an exclusive interview with TV host Kris Aquino.

According to Liezel, keeping her silence all this time was her way of coping.

“Siguro I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to talk about it...I just wanted to deal with it myself,” she told Kris.

Liezel narrated how she and her close friend Pops Fernandez discovered the tumor.

“Pops (Fernandez) and I, we have this agreement [that] once we turn 40, [we'd have our] breast exam [together]. But, postpone, postpone, postpone...[we were thinking] it’s not a priority. It doesn’t run in our family..." she disclosed.

They finally arranged to take a breast examination on July 10, 2008.

"Nu’ng pine-prepare na ako, parang ‘yong face niya (Pops) biglang gumano’n. Parang hindi maganda ‘yong face niya. Kapa pa lang ‘yon. Parang ninenerbyos na ako. I asked her, ‘What did you see?’ [She told me] ‘Relax ka lang, the MRI takes like two hours.’”

Liezel was fidgety on the way home.

“Pag-uwi [namin] sabi ni Albert, ‘How was it?’ Gano’n lang ako. I don’t know, I was just scared already,” she recalled.

The doctor requested Liezel to return to the clinic the next day.

“My OB-Gyne called, pinapapunta ako. Sabi ko, ‘Doktora, tell me na now.’ [And she said] ‘It’s positive.’ When she said that, I just dropped the phone and I remember I was running and shouting. Albert was downstairs. I was going down para puntahan siya,” she recalled.

"That whole day was a blur, I was just crying, crying."

Liezel checked into the hospital on July 12 then had the operation the very next day.

“It was that fast. It’s advanced stage na kasi. It was stage 3 C. Sabi ko, ‘Ah, 3 C. Anong stage ba ‘yan hanggang ten?’

“No, hanggang stage 4 lang (sabi nila).”

Liezel was so distressed, that she just let her family decide for her. “Kasi ako parang nakatulalala na. My kids were there to cheer me up,” she recalled

Pops was with her all the time.

“Pops...I don’t remember what she said [but] when I was operated on, she was there."

She talked about undergoing the painful process of chemotherapy which she had to go through not just once, but six agonizing times.

“I was told that they have to be aggressive kasi advanced stage na. I would need six rounds (of chemotherapy). They’re really strong ones. It’s done every three weeks."

“All my veins, nagko-collapse. They removed all my lymph nodes. My feet dried up, my lashes were down and so did my hair. Nag-iba ang skin tone ko. That was one of the times I really really cried. For first treatment, patse-patse na ang buhok ko."

Liezel stayed at the hospital for 33 days.

“Hihiga ka doon and I remember that first time, I was really, really crying. Siyempre, I was like…one of the patients. Bubuksan ‘yong gown [ko]. Minamarkahan, minemeasure [iyong breasts ko]... parang [I was] so vulnerable. Alam ko it didn’t mean anything to them, [but] ganoon lang ang feeling ko,” she recalled.

“It’s hard. Talagang up to now, mahirap pa ring tanggapin,” she said.

According to a study, breast cancer remains the number one killer of Filipino women. The Philippines currently has the ninth highest rate of breast cancer in the world.