Philippines Embassy officials ask Vietnamese government for permission to visit convicted drug mule, Amodia Teresita Palacio

After a 61-year-old Filipina was sentenced to death last week in Vietnam, Philippines officials are asking the Hanoi governments permission to visit her, according to a GMA News report Monday.

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61-year-old Amodia Teresita Palacio was arrested for possession and smuggling of more than five kilograms (11 pounds) of methamphetamine, or shabu as its called in the Philippines in April at a Hanoi airport.

Last Wednesday,a Vietnamese court sentenced Palacio to death for the crime.

“She is now in detention cell no. 1. Hopefully they will be granted visitation within this week,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said Monday.

Communist Vietnam’s drug laws are among the toughest in the world and anyone found guilty of possessing more than around half a kilogramme of heroin faces the death penalty.

The convicted drug mule has appealed her case. According to Hernandez, “There’s a Vietnamese lawyer for her and there is this Hanoi lawyers association helping her. This is being provided by the Hanoi government. We will know the status of her appeal after the visit of the embassy.”

Back in the Philippines, relatives of Palacio say the woman was tricked by a recruiter into becoming a drug courier.

In an interview Friday on GMA Network’s “24 Oras” newscast, Palacio’s nieces said their aunt met a recruiter from Batangas in March last year who was allegedly the right hand of an African-American recruiter.

The nieces said the recruiter offered Palacio a job with a salary of $3,000 (roughly P123,000) per month.

The recruiter also allegedly assured Palacio that all of her travel expenses, including airfare, would be covered by them.

Palacio is only one of the large number of Filipino drug mules caught, detained and sentenced to death abroad.

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