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Friday, January 20, 2006
Mayor, Singapore bury hatchet of '95
By Nelson C. Bagaforo and Ben O. Tesiorna
DAVAO CITY -- After over 10 years, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte made amends with Singapore, admitting he had offended the government of his Asean neighbor when he led the burning of a Singaporean flag in front of the City Hall to protest the execution of Filipina domestic helper Flor Contemplacion in that country.
"I'm a Filipino. If you tinker with the symbol of my country, I would also be mad," he told delegates to the Asean Tourism Forum at the Apo View Hotel Wednesday.
"I'm looking forward to visiting Singapore, but I hope I won't end up at Changi Prison," he jokingly said.
Contemplacion was detained and hanged in Changi Prison.
Duterte said the last time he went to Singapore was more than 20 years ago when he was still a prosecutor. He was following up a case at that time.
If he was critical with Singapore's judicial system before, Duterte made a surprise remark in his speech during the forum when he said Singapore's judicial system is the "best, like other Asean countries, in the world."
"I don't have anything against the judicial system of Singapore. It's patterned after the British judicial system and one of the best in the world," he said.
Singapore Tourism Board's deputy chair and chief executive Lim Neo Chian said in response that Duterte will be warmly welcomed if he decides to visit Singapore in the near future.
"We will give him a warm reception," Chian said.
Chian thanked Duterte for the warm reception Davao City has given the Singaporean team attending the Asean Tourism Forum in the city, saying this will be reciprocated once the mayor visits their country.
He said the flag burning incident is a thing of the past and they had already forgotten it.
Duterte burned a Singapore flag in front of City Hall in 1995 to protest what he called as an injustice not just to Flor Contemplacion and her family but to the entire Filipinos as well. Several burning of Singapore flags by militant groups all over the country followed.
Contemplacion, a 42-year-old Filipina domestic helper, was convicted by a Singaporean court for killing Filipina maid Delia Maga and Nicholas Huang, the three-year-old Singaporean son of her employer on May 4, 1991.
She had originally confessed to the murders. But it was claimed later that Contemplacion was forced to make such confession and that she was not in her right mind when she committed the crime. These two claims were not substantiated.
She was hanged by Darshan Singh at around 6 a.m. on March 17, 1995 together with three male drug traffickers.
Anger swept the Philippines when news of the execution broke out. Leftist and feminist groups, human rights activists, and the media denounced Singapore as a barbaric, tyrannical, and totalitarian state with no respect for human rights.
The Roman Catholic Church called Singapore a state without mercy. (Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)
(January 20, 2006 issue)
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