Thursday, March 31, 2011

Militants seek Binay's help for 8 Pinoys on death row in Middle East

source: gma


Militants will ask Vice President Jejomar Binay when he arrives in Saudi Arabia on Friday to intercede for at least eight Filipinos facing execution there.



The militant migrants group Migrante-Middle East urged Binay to convince the Saudi Arabia government to show mercy to the Filipinos on Death Row in the Kingdom.

“Vice President Jejomar Binay arrives on Friday to discuss with Saudi officials the ban on hiring new Filipino domestic helpers. But we will also ask him to plead with the Saudi government on behalf of eight Filipinos who are on death row," Migrante Middle East coordinator John Monterona said in an interview published Thursday on the news site Arab News.

He said the Filipinos on death row include Don Lanuza, Rolando and Edison Gonzales and Eduardo Arcilla.

Monterona said the Philippine government must hold talks with the Saudi government urgently after three Filipinos were executed in China on Wednesday over drug charges.

Monterona lamented that nobody knows what action the Philippine government has taken so far on behalf of the eight workers on death row in the Kingdom.

“We are urging Vice President Jejomar Binay to intervene on their behalf by taking up their case with the authorities," he said.

Monterona had already suggested the formation of a high-level inter-agency task force to find ways to have death sentences commuted instead.

Those executed last Wednesday were Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, 32; Ramon Credo, 42; and Elizabeth Batain, 28.

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.

source: gma

No comments:

Post a Comment