In recent years, Filipino workers bound overseas have fallen prey drug syndicates to by

allowing themselves to serve as couriers to transport illegal drugs inside their luggage,
shoes, or fabric buttons.

China strictly imposes tough penalties on persons caught in possession of prohibited drugs.
Smuggling of drugs in amounts as little as 50 grams carries a 15-year prison sentence; drug
smuggling in larger amounts are meted with a life sentence or even the death penalty.

In death sentences without reprieve, on the other hand, decisions of lower courts are
automatically elevated to the higher courts for review. The People's Supreme Court is the
court of last resort before the judgment becomes final and executory.

JA/MRT/JV, GMA News Online
China's decision to postpone execution of 3 Filipino drug smugglers unprecedented and
unusual http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2011/02/chinas-decision-to-postpone-
execution.html

In a statement, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said President Aquino made a
timely decision to send a delegation to China led by Vice President Jejomar Binay to plead
for clemency for the three Filipinos on death row.

Credo was convicted for smuggling 4,113 grams of heroin on Dec. 28, 2008 in Xiamen while
Villanueva was meted the death penalty on Dec. 24 in the same year for smuggling 4,110
grams of heroin in Xiamen.

Batain was found in possession of 6,800 grams of heroin in Shenzhen and sentenced on
May 24, 2008.

Without condoning the acts of the Filipinos, who allowed themselves to be drug couriers,
that gives us a brief sigh of relief. I just hope that the Chinese government would
understand that they are not hardened criminals and were forced to do it because of
poverty and commute the penalty to life imprisonment instead, House Majority Leader
and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales said.

Source: philSTAR.com, February 20, 2011

The lack of jobs at home is a major reason why women in particular resort to smuggling
drugs.

Source: Philippine Star, February 20, 2011

Villar said the Philippines ranks fifth in methamphetamine confiscation from 1998 to 2007,
based from the United Nations' office on Drug and Crime 2009 World Drug Report.

The members of foreign drug rings give Filipino mules tickets and pocket money to travel
to Hong Kong or to China with a promise to pay the carriers upon delivery of the drugs to
their destination.

In 1996, after an aggressive anti-crime campaign was carried out in China, there were
4,367, or roughly 12 people a day being executed, the AI said.

APA - China postpones planned execution of Filipinos

[19 Feb 2011 02:37]

In a statement Thursday before he left the Philippines, Binay said: "We do not condone
drug trafficking. However, we believe that these Filipinos were merely victims of
international drug syndicates. I carry with me the prayers of the Filipino people that
clemency could be granted on humanitarian grounds."

II. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DRUG PROBLEM

The drug trade dates back during the 16
th
century when Great Britain begun
exploring new territories in the Far East in search for raw materials to sustain its industrial
revolution. It was in this exploration process, and in the acquisition of new territories, that
the opium poppy and the Indian hemp were discovered to be abundant along the fertile
crescent, extending from the Persian Gulf to the heart of China particularly in the Yunnan
Provinces and then to the Indo-China territories. This was originally utilized for medical
purposes by the Chinese and in religious ceremonies by the Buddhists. The commodity
was then regularly exported to Great Britain and because of its sedative and addiction
effects, was utilized mostly by British soldiers in their wars with other colonial powers of
Europe.

The increasing demand for this commodity prompted Great Britain to further
pressure China to cultivate and produce opium as a major crop primarily for export.
However, China recognizing the adverse effect of the commodity on the populace if

unregulated and abused passed an Imperial Decree regulating and limiting the production
and utilization of opium. Hence, it has to turn down the request of the British government.
What followed was the imposition, by the latter, of military sanctions forcing China to
declare war on Great Britain known in history as the Opium War. China was vanquished
and has to accede to the terms and conditions imposed by the victor which includes among
others the repeal of the Anti-Opium Law of the emperor, increase in the production and
exportation of opium and occupation by Great Britain of all the shoreline territories of
China including Shanghai and Hongkong. The drug trade flourished which encouraged
other colonial powers to force their colonies to produce the same commodity. Macau and
Indo-China were pressured to produce and exported opium to Portugal and France
respectively until these colonial powers themselves begun to recognize the ill-effects of
drugs on their own people. Laws were passed regulating the same until it was declared as
illegal forcing the trade to go underground. Thus the struggle against drugs and the drug
trade begun.