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.