DFA: No long queue of Pinoys on China death row

Only 1 Filipino still facing death penalty

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday said only one more Filipino is waiting for a final ruling on a drug trafficking case in China.

In an interview with ANC, DFA Spokesperson Ed Malaya said the case, which is pending before the Supreme Court of China, is also punishable by death.

“There is no nakapilang Pilipinong bibitayin sa China. There is no such thing. There is only one,” Malaya said.

Malaya said the earlier reported 73 cases of Filipinos on death row in China is not accurate because they were “meted the penalty of death with 2-year reprieve."

“They are all drug-related cases,” he said.

Malaya said that there were 6 critical death penalty cases in China, including the cases of Sally Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain.

“Of the 6, three were affirmed. That's why we had the execution yesterday. Two of the 6 were reevaluated and the penalties were lowered from death penalty without reprieve to death penalty with 2-year reprieve,” Malaya said.

Villanueva, Credo and Batain were executed late Wednesday morning in China.

“There is a remaining one and this is what is pending before the Supreme People's Court in Beijing,” he said.

The reprieve given to the 2 Filipinos, Malaya said, means that if they show good behavior in prison, their death sentence will be commuted to life in prison.

He added that most death penalty cases involving Filipinos around the world are in China.

“Most of the death penalty cases in China pertain to drugs. What we have been seeing is a specific targeting by international drug syndicates of Filipinos to become drug couriers,” he said.

According to Malaya, the number of Filipinos involved or arrested for drug trafficking in 2007 was very minimal. However, it noted that the figure in China jumped to 111 or almost 600% jump from the previous year.

“In 2009, we have seen a sustaining of this momentum up to last year,” he said.

“At the end of the day, what is really needed is personal vigilance--to know what is good and what is bad. And clearly, using drugs is bad and also trafficking of drugs is bad and it cannot be excused,” he said.