At least three Filipinos are awaiting their death execution in China over drug-related offenses, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said yesterday.
At yesterday’s House Committee on Appropriations briefing on the DFA’s proposed P16.63 billion budget for 2017, he said “two or three” Filipinos are facing death penalty in China for illegal drugs.
“In Indonesia, we have one. In China, two to three (Filipinos) are facing death sentence. They have not been scheduled for execution,” he told the lawmakers.
The government is flexing its muscles to spare the life of Mary Jane Veloso, who was apprehended in 2010 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia upon her arrival from Malaysia for transporting 2.6 kilograms of heroin concealed in her luggage.
She was given a temporary reprieve on the eleventh hour by Indonesian President Joko Widodo last year after the previous Aquino government asked the Indonesian government that she be first allowed to provide testimonial evidence against her alleged human trafficker in a Philippine criminal case. (Charissa M. Luci)