First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo will undergo spinal surgery to arrest his months-long and persistent back pains.

During the launching of the First Gentleman’s two coffee table books at Malacañang’s Rizal Hall, he revealed he would undergo an operation to address the “unstable” condition of his spine, which he said, might cause a “tear” in his aorta.

“By the way, in a few days, I will undergo surgery on my spinal column. May I request for your prayers,” he said.

In an ambush interview, he said the operation will take place at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Global City, Taguig, nearly three months after he was taken to that hospital after he developed a “re-dissection of the thoracic aorta and experienced back pains.”

The First Gentleman, who will be celebrating his 64th birthday on June 27, is expected to stay for 10 days in the hospital for such operation.

Asked how serious his spinal column’s condition is, he said: “I guess it is serious to be operated on. My doctors said it should be done while I’m ok.”

Before the launching, First Gentleman’s Chief-of-Staff and personal secretary, Juris Soliman, confirmed to reporters that he had decided to undergo surgery.

On Marche 25, 2010, President Arroyo skipped her speaking engagement at the historic landmark Manila Hotel Thursday to rush her husband to St. Luke’s due to intense back pains and previous heart condition.

President Arroyo even spent her Easter at the hospital to be with her husband who recuperated at St. Luke’s coronary care unit.

In December, 2006, the First Gentleman underwent an “angioplasty operation” at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City to widen an obstructed blood vessel in his heart.

Four month later on April 8, 2007, he underwent another surgery – this time a 10-hour open-heart surgery due to a dissecting aortic aneurysm, a serious condition in which a tear develops in the inner layer of the aorta, the large blood vessel branching out from the heart.

On March 25, 2010, he suffered back pains in connection with his 2007 heart surgery and was confined at St. Luke’s.

In November, 2008, a chartered plane carrying President Arroyo and the First Gentleman on their way to Peru made an emergency landing in Osaka, Japan after he complained of back pain and stomach cramps. It was later diagnosed as acute infection related to diarrhea.