26 years after: The execution of Flor Contemplacion in Singapore remembered
On 17 March 1995, Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion, 42, was executed at the Changi Women’s Prison and Drug Rehabilitation Center in Singapore.
The execution sparked mass protests and a diplomatic row between Singapore and the Philippines.
20 years later, it moved then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte to tell a crowd in 2015, "I burned the flag of Singapore. I said: 'F*** you ... You are a garrison pretending to be a country.”
About the case
Delia Maga, a fellow domestic worker, was found strangled to death on 4 May 1991. Nicholas Huang, a three-year-old boy under the care of Maga, was also discovered drowned.
Singapore police connected Contemplacion to the deaths through a diary that Maga kept. During interrogation, she confessed to the murders of Maga and Huang.
Contemplacion was sentenced to death by hanging.
Aftermath
Protests erupted across the Philippines following Contemplacion’s execution.
One of the protests was led by then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who burned a Singapore flag while leading a protest by city hall employees.
Duterte would later recall his actions during his presidential campaign, uttering his controversial remark.
His spokesperson would later say that Duterte’s remark was meant to be a joke.
