Execution of 3 Filipinos on China death row set March 30

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE 4) The three Filipino drugs mules on death row in China will be executed by lethal injection next Wednesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

Despite winning a rare reprieve following a high-level Philippine lobby, the death sentences on Ramon Credo, 42, Elizabeth Batain, 38, and Sally Villanueva, 32, will be carried out, the DFA said Wednesday.

“On the same day” Credo and Villanueva will be executed in Xiamen while the death penalty on Batain will be carried out in Shenzhen, said DFA spokesman J. Eduardo Malaya at a news conference.

Philippine authorities had gone to great lengths in a bid to save the Filipinos and made repeated appeals for their sentences to be commuted to life in jail.

The three, who were convicted of heroin smuggling in 2008, were due to have been put to death last February 20 and 21 but was put on hold after Vice President Jejomar Binay went to Beijing on February 18 to seek mercy.

But the Chinese embassy in Manila last week dashed hopes for clemency, saying, “The verdict is a final verdict.”

The DFA said Manila will respect the final ruling of China’s high tribunal.

“The government respects the Chinese law and the finality of the verdict of the Chinese People’s Court,” Malaya told reporters.

President Benigno Aquino last week acknowledged that from the start, the government was told that the stay of execution of the three Filipinos was temporary, and  “we have to conform to their laws.”

<Strong>’All possible assistance’ </strong>

The DFA said it provided “all possible legal and consular assistance” to the three Filipinos.

“The government ensured that their legal rights were respected and observed, and their welfare protected from the time of their arrests and throughout the judicial process, and even up to this very day,” it said.

The government had insisted that the three were from poor families and were duped into becoming drug mules by crime gangs.

The three are among 227 Filipinos jailed for drugs offenses in China.

The DFA reiterated its warning for Filipinos “not to allow themselves to be victimized by international drug syndicates.”

“We wish to stress that vigilance is the first major step in combating the modus operandi of international drug traffickers,” it said. “We urge all our citizens to be on alert at all times in order not to be victimized by drug syndicates.”

<Strong>Doomed loved ones </strong>

The DFA said the families of the Filipinos had been informed of the impending executions and will leave for China over the weekend to see their doomed loved ones for the last time.

Credo, 42, a father of five children, was arrested on December 28, 2008, at Gaoji International Airport in Xiamen after getting off a China Southern Airlines flight from Manila.  A total of 4,113 grams of heroin was found in his luggage and he was formally charged with drug smuggling on January 21, 2009.

Credo is being held at Xiamen No. 1 Detention House, as is Villanueva, 32.

Villanueva, a mother of two, was apprehended on December 24, 2008, also at Gaoji International Airport,  upon arrival on China Southern Airlines flight from Manila. She was found with 4,410 grams of heroin in her suitcase. Villanueva was formally charged with drug smuggling on January 23, 2009.

Batain, 38, was arrested on May 25, 2008, at the Shenzhen airport after disembarking from an Asiana Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur. A total of 6,800 grams of heroin was found “sealed inside two reams of bond paper inside her luggage.” She was charged with drug trafficking on June 30, 2009. She is being held at Shenzhen No. 3 Detention House.

<Strong>Last-ditch effort </strong>

The Philippines skipped the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in December honoring Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in an attempt to encourage Beijing to spare the lives of five Filipinos on death row, believed to include the trio.

China had been infuriated by the award of the prize to the jailed activist and pressured other countries not to attend the ceremony.

President Benigno Aquino said the decision to boycott the ceremony was aimed at saving the lives of Filipinos on death row in China.

Ties between the two countries have been tested in other spheres recently.

Last year eight tourists from Hong Kong were killed in a bungled rescue bid by Philippine police after they had been taken hostage aboard a bus in Manila.

Aquino sparked outrage in Hong Kong by later deciding to press only minor criminal charges against several police officials involved in the fiasco.

The Philippines lodged a complaint with China this month after two Chinese vessels ordered a Filipino oil exploration boat to leave waters near the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea.

China brushed off the protest and reiterated its sovereignty over the island chain and its adjacent waters. <strong><em> With reports from Jerry E. Esplanada, Philippine Daily Inquirer and Agence France-Presse </em></strong>