Absolutely no amount

China has gone through with the execution of a Filipina drug mule last Wednesday morning. A week from the announcement of the execution has come and gone, and they have made good on their promise to do so. The family just had enough time to say goodbye. The woman was caught at Hangzhou international airport last January 2011. Additional details provided by the Chinese government stated that she has been to China at least eighteen times, and in all those times was a drug mule. A little over six kilograms of heroin was caught in her possession as she tried to bring it into China. Her cousin was also caught with approximately the same amount. This actually gives credence to her multiple drug mule sorties as she was able to entice her cousin to do the same, thinking she gets away with it every time. While her death sentence was carried out with speed, her cousin has been given a two-year reprieve for good behavior. Whatever that means, I really don't know. The family has requested the government not to disclose her name, as they wish to grieve in private. Some say they just want to hide from the pointing, accusing fingers of the country. Perhaps for the better.

It is difficult to talk about something like this after the sad fact. While we condole with the family's loss of a loved one, we also cannot condone what was done that led to her demise. What more will it take for people to understand that being a drug mule is tantamount to suicide? According to the DFA, there are over two hundred Filipinos imprisoned in China because of drug-related offenses. Twenty-eight of them are on death row, while the others are either serving life sentences or long-term imprisonment. The 28 have been given two-year reprieves, but knowing what China is, we are bound to have 28 more of what happened last Wednesday, after their respective reprieves have lapsed. Five Filipino drug mules have been executed in China since 2011. And at a time when relations between our two countries are frayed, I doubt if any pleas for clemency will be heard for the 28. We can always hope.

Money is very much like a drug. Especially quick money. Money laid at your lap for doing the apparent simplest of things like investing in a high-yielding scam, or becoming a drug mule. Her previous apparent successes have hooked her good, even convincing a family member to join her, just like the initial high returns of a scam makes one convince others to join in. So it is best avoided altogether. If approached by a drug syndicate, do the right thing and report them to the authorities. Have then arrested, imprisoned, deported if foreigners and hopefully their governments execute them. The scourge of drugs always hit the home hardest. And absolutely no amount of money can make up for the death, the intentional death of a loved one.

Absolutely no amount.