PHILIPPINES: Family of Filipino drug mule make final plea to Chinese government to commute sentence of their daughter, who is due to be executed

Record ID: 640872

  • Title: PHILIPPINES: Family of Filipino drug mule make final plea to Chinese government to commute sentence of their daughter, who is due to be executed
  • Date: 26th March 2011
  • Summary: PHOTOGRAPH OF CONVICTED DRUG MULE, SALLY ORDINARIO-VILLANUEVA COUPLES LOOKING AT PHOTOS MORE OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF ORDINARIO-VILLANUEVA
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Philippines, Philippines
  • Country: Philippines
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAHNXQKI9SMA24S2SVTS0JAWPG
  • Story Text: Less than a week before the execution of three Filipino drug mules on death row in China, one of the families made a final plea to the Chinese government on Friday (March 25) seeking a reprieve from the death sentence.
    Geronlimo and Basilisa Ordinario, the parents of convicted drug mule Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, pleaded their eldest daughter's innocence and urged China to reconsider her sentence.
    "I ask China to hold off the execution of our daughter since we are doing our best to prove her innocence," her mother, Basilisa Ordinario said.
    Her father asked them to consider her two children.
    "I ask the government of China to please give us our wish and have sympathy on our family, especially our daughter and her two children. Please don't sentence our daughter to death since she's innocent," Geronlimo Ordinario said.
    The couple has been on a non-stop campaign to try and change their daughter's fate after hearing the March 30 death sentence from local news reports.
    They admitted that while their daughter Sally was found carrying illegal drugs, they believe it was unintentional as their daughter had no knowledge that she was carrying any drugs when she was given an empty briefcase to take into China.
    Sally Ordinario-Villanueva was convicted of drug smuggling in 2008 after she was caught carrying four kilograms of heroin inside the briefcase.
    She had accepted a job in China to earn money to feed her family.
    She is one of the three Filipino drug mules to receive the death sentence.
    Filipino congressman, Walden Bello, asked the Chinese government to reconsider the sentence.
    "I appeal to the Chinese government: please show compassion, and do not carry out this sentence because it will be a tragedy for the whole country. And all 90 million Filipinos will really feel bad and terrible, and will feel this as a terrible tragedy," he said.
    The families of the three convicted Filipinos are to leave the Philippines for China on March 27th for their final goodbyes.
    The Philippine government said it honoured China's decision and respected its sovereignty in the cases of the three convicted Filipinos, but that they would continue asking for the sentence to be commuted.
    In December, the Philippines skipped a Nobel Prize ceremony honoring Liu Xiaobo, a known critic in China, hoping to encourage the Chinese government to spare the lives of the Filipinos in death row.
    More than 200 Filipinos are jailed in China on drugs charges, about one-third of whom have received death sentences. A majority of the sentences were reprieved. Worldwide, around 600 Filipinos are in jail for drugs.
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