EDITORIAL - Death sentence

The Philippines snubbed the Nobel Peace Prize awarding ceremonies in Oslo and triggered a diplomatic row with Taipei by deporting 14 Taiwanese swindling suspects to China as demanded by Beijing. President Aquino had initially said the Philippine decision on the Nobel Prize rites was meant to save the lives of several Filipinos facing death for drug offenses in China. It didn’t work; three Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking in China are headed for execution by firing squad after a final verdict was handed down this week by the Supreme People’s Court.

“No one is privileged to transcend law,” a statement yesterday from the Chinese embassy declared. It added that in China, criminals are brought to justice “in strict accordance with law” and “strict judicial procedures” are followed in meting out capital punishment. Other foreign drug offenders will suffer the same penalty, the statement warned. The best that Beijing can do, it added, is assist relatives in visiting the three convicted drug mules.

What the Aquino administration can do, without risking further diplomatic embarrassment, is to go after the growing number of organized gangs recruiting Filipinos, particularly women, as international drug mules. China is not the only country where Filipinos have been caught bringing in prohibited drugs. Similar cases have been reported in other Asian countries and as far away as Brazil.

One of the three Filipinos now facing death in China, Sally Villanueva, was originally recruited to work as a maid in Macau. Her brother said Villanueva, a 33-year-old mother of two, was duped by a recruiter, Tita Cacayan, into carrying a briefcase to China. Upon Villanueva’s arrival at the international airport in Xiamen, Chinese authorities found four kilos of heroin in the briefcase. Villanueva’s brother said Cacayan belongs to a drug ring operating in the Asia-Pacific.

Those drug rings must be broken up and Filipino travelers must be thoroughly briefed about such schemes. The public must also be warned about the deadly risks of smuggling prohibited drugs across borders by swallowing them in small packages. Large sums and freebies promised in return for seemingly innocuous errands should immediately set off alarm bells. For those who knowingly act as drug mules because the promised earnings are too tempting to pass up, the fate of the three Filipinos in China should serve as sufficient warning.