RP foreign minister resigns over Flor case
RP foreign minister resigns over Flor case
MANILA (Reuter): A tearful Philippine foreign minister resigned yesterday, the latest and most prominent casualty in a major domestic and diplomatic row over the execution of a Filipina maid for double murder in Singapore.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Romulo, his voice choked with emotion, told a news conference he hoped his departure would help calm the furor over Flor Contemplacion, hailed at home as a national martyr despite confessing to the murders.
The execution has caused the most serious rift between members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since the six-nation alliance, which also includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, was formed in 1967.
It has become a serious liability for President Fidel Ramos ahead of legislative and local government elections on May 8.
Romulo, 56, said the opposition was using the Contemplacion case to attack Ramos's three-year-old government.
"It has pained me deeply that all the achievements of your administration have been so adversely affected by the controversy surrounding the Maga-Contemplacion case," he told Ramos in his letter of resignation.
"It is my desire now that the country will be able to see the situation from a cooler and more objective perspective," he told reporters in the Malacanang presidential palace.
Romulo's letter was dated April 3 but Ramos only announced yesterday he was accepting it "with deep regret".
Labor and opposition groups have demanded Romulo's dismissal since Contemplacion's March 17 execution for the 1991 murder of fellow Filipina maid Delia Maga and Maga's four-year-old Singaporean ward, Nicholas Huang.
An inquiry Ramos set up echoed the views of many Filipinos when it concluded there was a "great possibility" Contemplacion was innocent.
It described Singapore as a "police state" and said it was possible Contemplacion has been tortured into confessing.
Singapore has offered to reopen its investigation if a neutral panel of experts agrees with a Manila autopsy team which exhumed Maga's corpse.
The Manila team said it was unlikely Contemplacion was strong enough to have inflicted the injuries they found on Maga's body.
Medical examiners from Singapore and the United States are due in Manila this week to conduct another examination of Maga's remains.
Ramos has already ordered nine officials suspended, including ambassador to Singapore Alicia Ramos, who is no relation, after the Manila inquiry said they had not done enough to save Contemplacion from the gallows.
He has also ordered the preparation of criminal charges against them.
Contemplacion has in death become a symbol of the more than four million Filipinos forced to find work overseas because wages are so low at home and jobs so scarce.
Filipino migrant workers say they frequently face abuse from employers, their rights trampled on by their host governments and almost total neglect from aloof Filipino consular officials.
Singapore -- Page 11