Stop hanging of maid: RP

Stop hanging of maid: RP

MANILA (Reuter): Philippines President Fidel Ramos has made an
emotional appeal to Singapore to postpone the hanging of a
Filipina maid for the murder of a Singaporean boy and another
maid, the presidential palace said yesterday.

Ramos, in a letter to Singaporean President Ong Teng Cheong
dated Saturday, expressed his and the Filipino people's "great
sadness" over a Singaporean court's decision condemning Flor
Contemplacion to death.

Ramos is in Copenhagen for the United Nations social
development summit. The appeal is the second Ramos has made for
the maid. Singapore turned down the first last month.

Contemplacion, 42, is scheduled to hang on March 17 for the
1991 murder of a Filipina maid and a four-year-old son of her
employers.

Emilia Frenilla, another Filipina maid who also worked in
Singapore and is now in the Philippines, said last week she was
willing to give evidence that the boy drowned accidentally and
that the other maid was killed by someone else.