3 Filipino drugs mules on death row in China will be execute on May 30

Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - The three Filipino drugs mules on death row in China will be executed next Wednesday (March 30), the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

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 with the Chinese embassy in Manila saying last week, "The verdict is a final verdict."
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.

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

But 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," DFA spokesman Ed Malaya told reporters.
"All sentences will be carried out in one day," he said.
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.
'All possible assistance'
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."

Last-ditch effort
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.