(Eagle News)–Two Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking in China were recently executed, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
The DFA made the announcement without naming the Filipinos in a Facebook post, following confirmation by the Philippine Consulate General in Guangzhou.
According to the DFA, the two were arrested in 2013, underwent a criminal trial, and lodged appeals before the High Court, which upheld the lower court’s judgment of conviction in 2018.
Apart from providing the two nationals assistance throughout the legal proceedings, the Philippine government, the DFA said, “exhausted all measures available to appeal to the relevant authorities of the People’s Republic of China to commute their sentences to life imprisonment and humanitarian grounds.”
The DFA said there were also “high-level political representations in this regard.”
“Our repeated appeals were consistent with the laws and values of our nation, which put the highest premium on human life,” the DFA said.
The Filipinos were executed on Nov. 24.
“In the end, the Chinese government, citing their internal laws, upheld the conviction, and the Philippines must respect China’s criminal laws and legal processes,” the DFA said.
The DFA expressed its condolences to the families of the Filipinos, while reminding the public traveling overseas to “remain vigilant of the modus operandi of drug syndicates in recruiting unwitting travelers as drug mules and to refuse to carry any package that you have not personally packed and thoroughly inspected.”
While the Philippine government will “continue to exhaust all possible avenues to assist our overseas nationals,” it said, “ultimately it is the laws and sovereign decisions of foreign countries and not the Philippines which will prevail in these cases.”
“Illegal drugs trade remains a scourge that we as a nation must confront. Drug syndicates claim as their victims not only drug addicts, but Filipinos whose socio-economic conditions render them vulnerable to the lure of these criminals,” it added.
