“Goodbye, I love you so much, mommy. Please bear in mind, I will never leave you,” he said.

And Credo kept his promise, according to his aunt Esperanza Pascua, his mother’s younger sister. Dolores came home with an urn containing his ashes.

Pascua was interviewed by phone Thursday, a day after Credo, Sally Villanueva and Elizabeth Batain, all convicted of drug trafficking, were executed in China.

Dolores and another son, along with Villanueva’s family, arrived on China Southern Airlines’ Flight CZ377, which landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at a little past 11 p.m. on Wednesday.

‘I’m next’

On the phone with the Inquirer, a weeping Pascua recalled Credo’s final moments, as recounted by his mother:

Mother and son hugged and kissed through the metal bars that separated them at the detention facility, just after the Chinese jail guards took the cuffs off Credo’s ankles.

Credo said at one point: “I know I am next [to be executed.]”

Dolores bowed her head and wept.

At home in Bacoor, Cavite province, on Wednesday night, Dolores slept with the urn at her bedside.

“She cried all night. Chito was a spoiled son. She loved him so much,” Pascua said.

She said Dolores intended to take her son’s ashes with her to Canada when the family migrates there in September.

Describing the mood Thursday in the house, Pascua said the urn had been placed on a table surrounded by Credo’s photos.

She said the family would start the nine-day prayer for the dead.

“[Dolores] has lost weight. She would not eat and just takes coffee,” Pascua said. “Chito also lost weight. Not that he was not fed, but he could not eat well since he was arrested.”

Death threat

Pascua said Credo attended the family reunion on Dec. 27, 2008. It was to be his last because he flew to China the next day and was arrested.

“His cousin asked him why he was not himself at that time. He said he had a big problem, that some people might kill him. That was all. We just learned about the drug [syndicate] when the [death] sentence came out,” Pascua said.

She said the family planned to file charges against one Precy Evangelista who purportedly recruited Credo into the drug syndicate on the promise of giving him a job in a furniture business.

“It wasn’t the Chinese who killed him. It was her. My nephew comes from a good family,” she said.

But a neighbor said Credo was sent to a drug rehab center thrice. Another neighbor claimed that Credo was “a drug [user], but he never pushed drugs.”

No interviews

Elizabeth Batain’s kin returned Thursday at 11 a.m. on Flight CZ3901.

Like Villanueva’s kin on Wednesday night, the family members were the last to disembark from the plane, walking straight without acknowledging reporters.

On the request of airport officials, the journalists only took pictures and videos before the family members were spirited away by Department of Foreign Affairs personnel.

“Are you happy with what you’re doing?” one of Batain’s relatives snapped at the journalists.

Maricar Cinco, Inquirer Southern Luzon