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.