Fresh start with Manila called for

Fresh start with Manila called for

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore's top newspaper The Straits Times yesterday called for a "fresh start" between the city-state and the Philippines after they resolved a crisis over the hanging of a Filipina domestic here.

Both should now rethink their attitudes toward each other, it suggested in an editorial after the two countries agreed to swap ambassadors 10 months after ties were disrupted by the execution of Flor Contemplacion for a double murder.

"In matters of temperament and control, undemonstrative Singaporeans and exuberant Filipinos would probably continue to be poles apart," the mass-circulation daily said in an editorial titled Time for a Fresh Start."

The longtime Southeast Asian allies pulled out their ambassadors amid a popular outcry in the Philippines, where Contemplacion was seen by many countryman as an innocent woman victimized by Singapore's legal system.