MANILA: China executed Wednesday morning three Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking despite Manila's persistent appeals for clemency, Philippine and Chinese authorities confirmed. Two of the three Filipinos — Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, 32, and Ramon Credo, 42 — were executed by lethal injection at a prison in Xiamen. The third, Elizabeth Batain, 38, was executed also by lethal injection at a detention facility in Shenzhen.The three were the first Filipinos to be executed in China for drug trafficking, the officials said. They were caught carrying at least four kilograms of heroin each when they arrived in China in 2008. Under Chinese law, the smuggling of at least 50 grams of any illicit drug is punishable by death. President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the Philippine government exhausted all means to save the lives of the three Filipinos and pledged to intensify its campaign against drug trafficking to prevent the loss of any more Filipino lives. “Our government had taken every available opportunity to appeal to the authorities of China for clemency in their cases, to which the Chinese government responded with a postponement of the execution. In the end, however, the sentence was imposed,” Lacierda said in a statement. Speaking in a radio interview from Qatar where he was on an official visit, Vice President Jejomar Binay expressed sadness that his last-minute appeal to Chinese authorities to stay the execution of the three was not granted. “It is a sad day for us. Up to the last minute we were doing everything we can to postpone the execution,” Binay said.
