ShareThis3 Filipinos are executed
in China; nation mourns
MANILA (PhilAmPress) — President Benigno S. Aquino III and Vice President Jejomar C. Binay led authorities this week in firming up resolve to fight illegal drugs and go after those who are into it.
Mirasol Delfinado (L), sister of Sally Villanueva, one of three Filipinos executed in China after being convicted of drug trafficking offenses, and supporters hold candles and placards outside their family home in Manila on March 30, 2011. Chinese authorities executed three Filipino drug mules on Wednesday, triggering condemnation in the Catholic Philippines and despair for family members who shared their final moments. The executions came after repeated pleas by the Philippine government for their sentences to be commuted were turned down, and ended vigils in Manila where supporters of the trio had prayed for a miracle.
“This menace must be stopped from destroying more lives and families,” the two top officials declared after the executions in China of Sally Villanueva, Elizabeth Batain and Ramon Credo for the capital offense of heroin smuggling.
Malacañang assured to break the illegal activities of drug pushers, which entrap people that eventually destroy lives in pursuit of their unscrupulous illegal trade even as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and a wide spectrum of society mourned the death of the three Filipinos in China.
In an official statement released by the Office of Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, the Palace said the government is resolved to ensure that the chain of victimization will be broken. The statement condemned the destruction of lives in pursuit of the illegal drug business.
“We are resolved to ensure that the chain of victimization, as pushers entrap and destroy lives in pursuit of their trade, will be broken. Those who traffic in illegal drugs respect no laws, no boundaries, and have no scruples about destroying lives,” the statement read.
“Our response must be relentless, with government and the citizenry working together to ensure vigilance and mutual support to prevent our countrymen from being used by drug pushers as sacrificial pawns, whether at home or abroad,” it added.
The Aquino administration expressed sympathies with the families of the condemned, sharing their sense of looming loss. The government said that the deaths of the three Filipinos are a vivid lesson in the tragic toll the drug trade takes on the entire families.
The executions of the three convicted drug mules were earlier stayed following the humanitarian visit to Beijing of Binay upon orders of President Aquino.
Binay is also the concurrent Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers’ Concerns.
In the statement, Lacierda said the Philippine government took every available opportunity to appeal to the authorities of China for clemency in the cases of the three. “In the end, however, the sentence was imposed,” he said.
Ordinario-Villanueva was convicted for smuggling 4,110 grams of heroin on Dec. 24, 2008 into Xiamen, while Credo was convicted for smuggling 4,113 grams of heroin on Dec. 28, 2008 in the same city.
Batain, meanwhile, was convicted for smuggling 6,800 grams of heroin on May 24, 2008, in Shenzhen.
Under the Chinese criminal code, smuggling of 50 grams of heroin or any narcotic drug into China is punishable by death Vice President Binay said he was “deeply saddened” but also asked for a “serious reflection on the plight of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).”
The trio were not OFWs but had started off their sojourn to China from Manila, and had claimed that they were unwitting drug mules carrying several kilos each of the illegal substance.
Binay said he had confirmation that shortly before their death, the trio were visited by Philippine officials and their relatives who bade their last goodbyes. The visitors were not allowed to witness the administration of the lethal injections, Binay added.
Binay stressed in his statement that the administration of President Aquino is committed to their well-being and is “determined to introduce much-needed pro-OFW reforms in government.”
”We must all commit ourselves fully to the fight against drugs, and to take all necessary action to stop this menace from destroying more lives and families.”
The President, according to Binay, “is determined to provide a stable economy that will guarantee jobs for all Filipinos and make our government agencies more responsive to their needs,’ Binay continued.
Like previous Presidents, Aquino has repeatedly stated that working abroad should just be an option for Filipinos seeking a better life.
As Aquino’s emissary and the concurrent Presidential Adviser on OFW Concerns, Binay met with the President and Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court of China in Beijing on the weekend before the original February 21 and 22 execution date of the trio.
Binay managed to get a pledge for a stay of execution “according to Chinese laws’ but left Beijing without a hint of when the “final and executory” date of executions by lethal injection inside their prison in the cities of Xiamen and Shenzhen will be. It turned out to be on March 30.
The exact time of their demise has not been made public, but late Wednesday morning, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) held a mass for the condemned and soon after circulated a mobile text message requesting a “one-minute silence in memory” of the three.
The text message also said, ”God bless their souls,” an indication that the Filipinos have been executed and into their spiritual journey to meet their Lord.
The DFA has been quiet since then, allowing Binay’s office to make remarks.
In a related development, CHR chair condemns China’s execution of Filipinos, the chairperson of the constitutionally-independent Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR) lamented the execution and blamed poverty for why drug trafficking pulls down Philippine society.
And, in defiance of explanations that Beijing’s decision was consonant with Chinese laws, affirmed by no less than the Supreme People’s Court, lawyer Etta Rosales said that more than she “respect(ing) China’s laws, I (she) respect the fundamental right to life of every human being.”
“Life trumps all laws that are but man-made. Death penalty should have no rightful place in any legal system,” she expressed in a statement shortly after news of the execution blanketed the Philippines.
The three are victims of the “inflexibilities of the Chinese criminal justice system,” stated Rosales, adding her hope that other Filipinos in China’s death row “will not suffer the same fate.”
She stated also her hopes that “the Chinese government will abide by the progressive norm of international law imposing an absolute obligation on States to prohibit capital punishment.”
“China’s laws may be paramount, but nothing stops its government from reforming laws in order to respect human dignity,” she campaigned.
She called on the Philippine Government “to step up efforts to eradicate poverty, which is the reason why drug trafficking and other social ills remain.”
About 70 more Filipinos have been meted the death penalty throughout China’s three-level court system. Cases that have reached the SPC are being evaluated for possible commutation or reprieve or remand to the Appellate Court. Worldwide, about 500 drug-related cases involve Filipinos.