Ramos sticks to his guns in row with Singapore

Ramos sticks to his guns in row with Singapore

MANILA (Reuter): President Fidel Ramos has rowed back on his
threat to break ties with Singapore and said he was studying
"other options" to settle an explosive row over the hanging of a
Filipina maid in that island state.

Analysts said Singapore's execution of Flor Contemplacion, a
mother of four, had driven Ramos into a corner and predicted
heads would roll to save the presidency from serious damage.

Ramos told a television talk show on Saturday evening a
diplomatic rupture with Manila's ally in the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations would be a drastic move.

"Severing of relations is a serious solution but there are
other options and some of them we are now undertaking," he said.
"We are trying, through our common interests with Singapore, to
find a fine solution."

The diplomatic crisis erupted after Singapore hanged
Contemplacion on March 17 for double murder despite Ramos'
appeals to stay her execution.

Faced with a national outrage over the execution, Ramos on
March 22 downgraded ties with Singapore by recalling Manila's
ambassador and threatened to break relations completely if an
inquiry he ordered showed Contemplacion was unjustly hanged.

He also threatened to fire officials found negligent in the
handling of the maid's case and repeated that threat on Saturday
when asked about a public clamor for him to sack Foreign
Secretary Roberto Romulo and Labor Secretary Nieves Confesor.

Ramos said the two ministers knew they served at his pleasure
and added: "I am ready to dismiss (officials) depending on the
findings of the (inquiry) commission."

Contemplacion, given a hero's burial in her hometown last
week, was hanged for the 1991 killing of a Filipina maid and a
three-year-old Singaporean boy.

She confessed to the murders but many Filipinos believed she
was tortured and accused Romulo and Confessor of not doing enough
to protect her legal rights.

Testimony on Thursday by a Filipino forensic expert, who
exhumed the remains of murdered maid Delia Maga, that it was
unlikely that Contemplacion killed her and that it was possible
the murders were committed by a man bolstered public opinion that
Singapore hanged an innocent woman.

Ramos proposed an autopsy by a third party, possibly Interpol,
to resolve the conflicting autopsy reports by Filipino and
Singaporean experts.

Other officials suggest asking the help of the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation.

"The buck stops here. In the ultimate analysis, I am fully
responsible for the lives and welfare of Ms Delia Maga and Ms
Flor Contemplacion," Romulo told the inquiry on Friday.

Political commentator Teodoro Benigno said Ramos had no other
choice but to satisfy the public cry for blood if he wanted to
save the presidency from permanent damage and his party from
defeat in next month's legislative and local polls.

"He has found himself in the middle of a nutcracker he
probably never imagined," Benigno said by telephone. "He can get
out of this by chopping off heads. If he does not do that, his
political survival is at stake."