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On March 17, 1995, the 42-year-old Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion was executed at the Changi Women’s Prison and Drug Rehabilitation Center in Singapore.
The execution sparked mass protests and a diplomatic dispute between Singapore and the Philippines.
20 years later, then-presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte told a crowd in 2015: “I burned the Singapore flag. I said, ‘Fuck you … you’re a garrison pretending to be a country.”
About the case
Delia Maga, a fellow domestic worker, was found strangled to death on May 4, 1991. Nicholas Huang, a three-year-old in Maga’s care, was also discovered drowning.
Singapore police linked Contemplacion to the deaths through a diary kept by Maga. During questioning, he confessed to the murders of Maga and Huang.
Contemplacion was sentenced to death by hanging.
Aftermath
Protests broke out in the Philippines after Contemplacion’s execution.
One of the protests was led by then-Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who burned a Singaporean flag while leading a protest by city hall employees.
Duterte would later recall his actions during his presidential campaign, delivering his controversial comment.
His spokesperson would later say that Duterte’s comment was intended to be a joke.
