Singapore Hangs Filipino Maid For Murdering Two Nation’s Legal System Criticized Once Again For Being Too Harsh

A Filipino maid convicted of murdering a colleague and a 4-year-old boy in Singapore was executed Friday despite a flurry of protests, pleas and threats.

Flor Contemplacion, 42, was hanged at dawn at the maximum security Changi prison, said prison spokeswoman Yim Pui Fun.

“All I can say is that she was executed this morning. The facts of the case will be released by the police later,” she told The Associated Press.

The case has focused new attention on Singapore’s strict legal system and revived a longstanding debate in the Philippines about alleged mistreatment of Filipinos working abroad in low-paying jobs.

Contemplacion was convicted last April of killing another Filipino maid, Della Maga, and her 4-year-old charge, Nicholas Huang, in May 1991.

Her lawyers unsuccessfully tried until the last hours to delay the execution, telling the Singapore government that there was fresh evidence to exonerate her and that the case should be reopened.

Singapore refused to make concessions, and rejected the new evidence - testimony by another maid who knew Contemplacion - as false.

Contemplacion, a mother of four, claimed that she was forced to confess during trial. A murder conviction carries a mandatory death penalty in Singapore.

Recently another maid, Emilia Frenilla, who used to work next door to Maga, came forward to say she had overheard conversations that suggested the boy drowned in a bathtub during an epileptic fit and his enraged family killed Maga.

Displaying unprecedented security during a hanging in Singapore, eight policemen, including two armed with machine guns and wearing flak jackets, stood outside the prison gates with two dogs.

Police cars and motorcycles patrolled the street in front continously, apparently to deter any possible protest by the estimated 75,000 Filipino maids working in Singapore. But there was no trouble.

Filipino maids, most of them poorly educated, form the bulk of domestic help in this city-state of 3.3 million people. Their wages are lower than those of local workers for equivalent work, but substantially higher than they would get at home.

Contemplacion won widespread sympathy in the Philippines, where protesters saw her as a victim of Singapore’s harsh legal system.

Several thousand people camped overnight in front of the Singapore Embassy in Manila. They shouted “Justice for Flor!” as the sun rose Friday in the Philippine capital.

Manila’s Roman Catholic bishops held a late-night Mass Thursday and urged Singapore to postpone the execution.

Left-wing guerrillas threatened to attack Singaporeans. President Fidel Ramos appealed to his Singapore counterpart to postpone the execution. That was rejected Wednesday.

A final request for a stay of the execution made by Contemplacion’s lawyers to President Ong Teng Cheong went unanswered.

As is the rule here, reporters were not allowed inside the prison. There also was no family present during the hanging. Contemplacion’s 17-year-old daughter, a son, 21, and 15-year-old twins met with her for the last time Thursday afternoon and flew back to Manila. Her husband remained in Manila during the past week.

The case once again demonstrated that Singapore’s strict legal system will not bow to anyone, including the Philippines, a partner in a regional economic grouping.

Singapore’s rigidity was first criticized when U.S. teenager Michael Fay was flogged last May for vandalism, despite an appeal by President Clinton. Fay’s confession was forced, his father said.

Last August, a Dutchman, Johannes van Damme, was hanged on a drug conviction despite appeals by human rights groups and the Netherlands. He was the first Westerner to hang in Singapore.

While at least 96 people have been hanged for drug offenses, only about 30 people have been sent to the gallows for murder since 1990.