Manila: President Benigno Aquino sent a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao through the Chinese Ambassador in Manila to ask for a reprieve for a Filipino scheduled for execution in China on December 8 over drug charges, a senior official said.
The letter was sent by Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario to the Chinese Ambassador in Manila on Tuesday, said Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez.
Aquino asked for less than the death sentence for the 35-year-old Filipino who was convicted of smuggling 1.495 kilograms of heroin in Guangxi, following his arrest at Guilin International Airport on September 13, 2008, said del Rosario. The accused came from Malaysia prior to his arrest, he added.
At the same time, Aquino also ordered Vice-President Jejomar Binay to go to China to personally appeal the case of the accused, whose name was not revealed.
"He has been instructed to make an appeal. The Department of Foreign Affairs [DFA] is making the arrangement [for his travel to China]," Binay's media officer Joey Salgado said in a television interview.
It will be the Philippine government's last-ditch effort to appeal for a lighter sentence for the prisoner, whose death sentence was affirmed by China's Supreme Peoples Court late November, said Hernandez, adding, "We are trying to make a last appeal with the Chinese government for the commutation of the Filipino's sentence."
Binay also made the same appeal last March, to save the lives of three Filipinos who were convicted of drug trafficking. But China rejected the appeal and the trio were executed.
