“It hurts,” said the anguished father of one of three Filipino drug mules scheduled for execution by lethal injection in China on March 30. “I didn’t see her for two years. Now when I finally get the opportunity to see her again, it will be only for a few moments, then she’d be nothing but a corpse.”

Ordinario, his wife and their two other children are to fly to China on Sunday for a farewell visit to their 32-year-old daughter.

“I still have strong faith that it won’t happen, that my daughter will live,” Ordinario said Thursday in a chance interview at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), which is making the travel arrangements for the families of the drug trafficking convicts.

“When I see her, I will tell her, ‘Don’t forget to pray, don’t lose hope,’” he told the Inquirer.

But while he is nursing hope, Ordinario said he had fully realized that nothing short of a miracle could save his daughter now.

“It scares me. I can’t sleep. It’s all I think about,” he said.

Villanueva, Ramon Credo, 42, and Elizabeth Batain, 38, were arrested separately in China in 2008 for carrying several kilograms of heroin, and convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death in 2009.

Batain will be executed in Shenzhen, and Villanueva and Credo in Xiamen, DFA spokesperson J. Eduardo Malaya announced on Wednesday.

Kin off limits

Malaya Thursday said family members of the three convicts would not be allowed to witness their execution.

Villanueva, Credo and Batain were originally scheduled for execution on Feb. 20 and 21, but a visit to Beijing and appeals for clemency by a high-level Philippine delegation led by Vice President Jejomar Binay moved China to announce a reprieve.

The DFA’s announcement on Wednesday had an air of finality to it, but Binay intends to appeal to Chinese authorities.

The Vice President remains hopeful and Chinese Ambassador Liu Jianchao is seeking understanding.

Binay will send a letter of appeal to Chinese authorities regarding the scheduled execution of the three Filipino drug trafficking convicts, according to President Benigno Aquino III’s spokesperson Edwin Lacierda.

“The Vice President believes that while [the executions have] not yet been carried out, there is still hope. He wants to exhaust all possible means,” Lacierda said at Thursday’s news briefing in Malacañang.

But despite Binay’s optimism, Lacierda expressed the Philippine government’s acceptance of the three convicts’ fate.

“Certainly, we would prefer a more positive outcome, but we’re realistic about the situation. We are aware that the agreement last time was only for the postponement of the executions,” Lacierda said.

Ordinario said he had filed a request with Chinese authorities to be allowed to claim his daughter’s body “in the event that the execution pushes through.”

“I hear that in many cases they cremate the bodies of those executed. I hope they will allow us to at least take the body home with us,” he said.

How it will be done

Citing Article 212 of the criminal procedure law of China, a ranking DFA official said the execution of the three Filipinos would not be held in public.

The same provision states that the judicial officer directing the execution shall verify the identity of the convict, and then ask him/her if he/she has any last words or letters for family members, said the source who asked not to be named because of the delicacy of the subject matter.

The judicial officer will then “deliver the criminal for the execution of the death sentence,” the source said.

Once the execution is done, the Chinese court that issued the death sentence shall notify the family members.

The next of kin have two options for the disposition of the remains—cremation or repatriation.

“If it is the latter, the shipment of the convict’s remains may take weeks after the carrying out of the sentence,” the source said.

DJ Yap, Phil. Daily Inquirer