They were told they were to die only Wednesday morning.
“I was the first one to see her,” Sally Villanueva’s younger sister Mylene Ordinario told radio dzBB from Xiamen, China. “We locked eyes and we both cried. She said, ‘What are you doing here, why are you all crying, am I going to die?’ She tried to console us. She said, ‘It’s okay. I have accepted my fate. I will be your angel and watch over you.’”
In Manila, President Benigno Aquino III shortly after noon went to the Palace chapel and prayed for the souls of Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain, who were convicted of drug trafficking in China.
The President got word that the executions had been carried out in China while at a meeting with Catholic Church officials led by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, his spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said.
They are the first Filipinos to be executed in China for drug trafficking.
In a statement issued shortly after the news was confirmed, Malacañang said it sympathized with the convicts’ families for their loss and promised to go after drug traffickers.
Surrounded by a throng of supporters and journalists, Villanueva’s family members in Manila erupted in anguished cries as news of the execution broke.
There were similar reactions at the home of Credo in Cavite province, but Batain’s kin had requested privacy and no reporters were with them.
