Manila: The Philippine government is seeking commutation of the death sentence handed to a Filipina tourist in Indonesia for smuggling 2.6 kilograms of heroin in 2010, a senior official has said.
“We are hopeful that. after completion of review [of her case], there will be a commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said.
“The process is underway,” he said, adding Indonesia’s Supreme Court returned to the lower court the records of the case on Monday for review on Tuesday.
“We have one more remedy in this case. Let us wait for the outcome of the review. We are taking this one step at a time,” Jose said.
He did not give details of the government’s other option to save the unnamed Filipina drug smuggler from execution by firing squad.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino asked his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo to review the Filipina’s case, when the latter was on a state visit to Manila in early February, sources said, adding this occurred when both leaders discussed migrant workers’ concerns, maritime cooperation and other issues.
The convicted Filipina was arrested at the Yogyakarta Airport on April 25, 2010.
Some 805 Filipinos are detained for drug offences abroad, Jose said.
Philippine authorities have blamed drug syndicates for luring Filipino men and women, many of them overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to smuggle drugs to Asia and South America at $3.000 (Dh11,000) to $4,000 (Dh14,691) per transaction.
Five Filipinos were executed via lethal injection for drug-related offences in China since 2011.
There are 10 million OFWs worldwide. Drug syndicates often lure some lowly-paid OFWs.
