source: philstar
MANILA, Philippines - A Filipino college lecturer is facing execution, again on drug charges – but this time in Malaysia.
This developed as the Philippine government said it would once again seek clemency for another Filipino on death row in China for drug trafficking.
Malaysian state lawyer Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin said Aida Dizon Garcia pleaded innocent in a court in Malaysia’s central Negri Sembilan state Thursday. A conviction carries the mandatory penalty of execution by hanging.
Wan Shaharuddin said the 51-year-old from Quezon City was arrested in November after exiting a bus from Thailand. He said police found 26.2 pounds (11.9 kilograms) of marijuana worth 17,800 ringgit or roughly $5,900 in the luggage she carried.
The court allowed Garcia until April 20 to get a lawyer. Wan Shaharuddin said Garcia was traveling as a tourist. Police trailed her bus because of a tip.
In Iloilo City, President Aquino said appeals for clemency for Filipinos on death rows in other countries would continue.
“We will continue to make appeals with regard to our citizens. We will try to exhaust all possible remedies that they may be spared the death penalty,” Aquino told reporters in an ambush interview after the ceremonial awarding and distribution of social services in the provincial capitol.
“But not only in China, but also in Middle East for so many different reasons. And so we are exhausting all of our efforts to be able to try or spare them at least from the death penalty,” Aquino said.
“We as a country have abolished the death penalty as a recourse to our dealing with the criminal elements,” he said.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Ed Malaya yesterday said “the Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur is well aware of the criminal charges against Garcia and is currently pro-actively extending assistance to her.”
Malaya said the embassy will ensure “that she is represented by a competent legal counsel and that she will have a fair trial.”
The plight of Filipinos on death rows abroad came into focus recently with the government’s futile and much-publicized attempts to stay the execution of Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain in China. The three were executed by lethal injection for drug trafficking last March 30.
Being consistent
At Malacañang, Secretary Ricky Carandang of the Presidential Communications Office for Strategic Planning and Development said the request for clemency for another Filipino on China’s death row was “consistent” with Aquino’s policy of exerting all efforts to save the lives of Filipinos facing execution abroad.
“Bilang isang bansa na walang (As a nation without) death penalty, we would make representations to countries that do have the death penalty if they could commute to life sentence the sentences of Filipinos who will face the death penalty,” he said in a briefing.
The Supreme People’s Court of China is reviewing the case of the convicted Filipino, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Carandang said the Chinese government has been “very reasonable” in its handling of cases of Filipinos on death row, with 73 of them given two year-reprieve, or life imprisonment.
“China, they’re very reasonable when it comes to their laws. We have had a number of cases reviewed and just within their jurisdiction given their review of certain cases, death sentences have already been commuted for a number of Filipinos there,” Carandang said.
“I guess it’s really subject to their review, if they see the level of evidence is very strong then you can see that they will push through with it. If they see that there is some way to question the level of evidence, then they are also willing to commute sentences,” he added.
He also said the drug problem is a global menace and not unique to the Philippines even if there is a large number of Filipinos on death rows abroad.
“There are nationals who get busted for drugs all over the world. I don’t think anybody - I don’t think the Thai government, I don’t think the Chinese government - I don’t think anybody sees that as a reflection of our country and our countrymen,” he said.
“These are still isolated cases and it happens with people all around the world,” he said.
He also downplayed concerns that the families of the three executed Filipinos received more benefits from government like scholarships than legitimate overseas Filipino workers.
“We will do that for people who are on death row as a matter of course. I understand the point of view of certain people and certainly it’s not just a question of, you know, whether they were victims or people who deserve assistance,” he said.
“It’s a very nuanced question that I think sometimes gets lost in the public discourse. So we understand the opinion of others who believe the three should not have been treated like heroes,” he said. But he called for compassion for the loved ones they left behind.
“As with anybody, when someone in your family is killed or executed, we as Filipinos will sympathize with the families,” he said.
“Well, I think this was a special case. This was given much attention by the media and by the public and we were acting in response to some of the opinions that were raised during the course of this whole episode,” he said.
US voices support
Meanwhile, the United States voiced support yesterday for the Philippines after China executed three Filipinos on drug charges in defiance of repeated appeals.
“I believe that this is something that we will want to support our Filipino friends on,” Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, told Congress. He said he would speak with Philippine officials in coming days.
The Philippines had pressed for China to spare the lives of the three. In December, the Philippines skipped the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in hopes of persuading Beijing.
“It’s fairly unusual in Asia when a government makes a very, almost personal, appeal at the very highest levels,” Campbell said.
“I think you know how strongly the Philippines government and President Aquino’s own Cabinet felt about this issue. To be turned away in such a manner, I think it was a little bit of a surprise to Filipino friends,” he said.
However, Campbell said he was not suggesting that the three should have gone unpunished.
The three Filipinos were arrested in 2008 for attempting to smuggle heroin into China. The Philippines, a largely Roman Catholic nation where many oppose the death penalty, said the trio had been duped by crime syndicates.
Campbell was responding to questions by Rep. Ed Royce, a Republican whose district in southern California has many Filipino Americans.
“The radical disparity of the death penalty here when the people organizing it get off scot-free is riveting,” Royce said.
The US has a long-standing alliance with the Philippines, a former US colony. A number of Asian nations have recently sought closer ties with Washington amid concerns over a rising China.
source: philstar
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