MANILA -- The Philippine government on Wednesday vowed to create more jobs for its citizens after the execution of three Filipino drug mules who entered China to escape widespread poverty and unemployment at home.
"Our ultimate goal is to create a situation where people are not pressured to resort to these things, where they can find enough gainful employment in the Philippines," President Benigno Aquino III said hours after the three Filipinos were executed in China through lethal injection.
Filipino drug smuggling convicts Ramon Credo, 42; Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, 32; and Elizabeth Batain, 38; were executed before noon Wednesday, despite last-minute appeals for clemency and political concessions by the Philippine government.
The three were arrested separately in 2008 carrying packages containing at least four kilograms of heroin. They were convicted and sentenced in 2009.
Aquino said the three drug convicts are "victims of a society that could not provide for them enough gainful employment in their home country."
