Two Filipinos Executed in China for Drug Trafficking

janimonow

Dec 4

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Saturday, December 2, 2023, that two Filipino nationals have been executed in China for drug trafficking. The DFA withheld the names of the two Filipinos out of respect for their families' privacy.

The DFA said that the Philippine government had exhausted all possible means to appeal to the Chinese government to commute the death sentences of the two Filipinos. However, the Chinese government did not grant the Philippine government's request.

"The government of the Republic of the Philippines further exhausted all measures available, including making high-level political representations, to appeal the cases of the two Filipinos to the Chinese government and commute their sentences to life imprisonment," the DFA said.

"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 that the two Filipinos were arrested in Guangdong in 2013 and were convicted of drug trafficking in 2016. They were sentenced to death in 2018.

The DFA said that it would continue to provide assistance to the families of the two Filipinos.

The execution of the two Filipinos is the latest in a series of executions of Filipinos in China for drug trafficking. In 2019, three Filipinos were executed in China for drug trafficking.

The DFA has called on the Chinese government to abolish the death penalty.

"The government of the Republic of the Philippines reiterates its longstanding position against the death penalty and calls for its abolition," the DFA said. "The government believes that the death penalty is a cruel and inhumane form of punishment and that it is not an effective deterrent to crime."