[Straits Times] CHINESE authorities executed three Filipino drug mules on Wednesday, triggering condemnation in the Catholic Philippines and despair for relatives who witnessed their final moments.'I just want to inform you that our three compatriots have been executed,' Vice-president Jejomar Binay announced over local radio, although there being no public announcement from the Chinese government. 'It is a sad day for all of us. Until the last moment, we did everything we could to save the three.'
The three - Ramon Credo, 42, Sally Villanueva, 32, and Elizabeth Batain, 38 - were nabbed separately in China in 2008 for smuggling heroin and sentenced to death. The Philippine government had made repeated appeals in recent months to spare the lives of the trio, including by sending Binay to Beijing on a mission to have their sentences commuted to life in jail.
But the Chinese government insisted there would be no favours for the trio, and that their cases would be dealt with according to domestic laws. The three were allowed to meet their relatives for an hour before they were put to death through lethal injection, in what turned out to be devastatingly emotional encounters.
'She was crying, she was partly incoherent. She had a lot of things to say,' said Mr Jason Ordinario, a brother of Villanueva who along with another sister and their parents met her as the final verdict was read in a court in Xiamen city. 'She asked us to take care of her children and make sure they can finish studies,' he told DZBB radio from China.
Villanueva's relatives said she did not know that she was due to be executed on Wednesday, and was surprised to see her family there. 'I was the first one to see her, we locked eyes and we both cried. She said what are you doing here, why are you all crying, am I going to die,' younger sister Mylene said on DZBB.