41 Facts About Flor Contemplacion

Flor Ramos Contemplacion was a Filipina domestic worker who was executed in Singapore after being convicted of murdering a fellow Filipina maid and the three-year-old boy whom she was babysitting.

Flor Contemplacion was born in San Pablo City in the Laguna province of Luzon, and was the second youngest of ten children.

Flor Contemplacion's father died when she was 7 years old, and due to the increased financial pressure on her rural family she moved to Manila to live with an elder sister when she was 10 years old.

Flor Contemplacion got married in 1972 when she was 19 years old and eventually had four children.

Flor Contemplacion's husband walked out on the family in 1987, leaving Contemplacion as the sole breadwinner.

Flor Contemplacion often worked seven days a week from 6am until midnight, doing household chores and looking after her employer's child.

Flor Contemplacion was found in possession of luxury items that were believed to have been stolen from Maga.

Investigations revealed that Flor Contemplacion had visited Maga at the apartment in Bukit Panjang several times before and had met Nicholas Huang on those occasions.

On 7 May 1991, Flor Contemplacion was charged with the double murder of Delia Mamaril Maga and Nicholas Huang and then remanded in custody to await trial.

Flor Contemplacion claimed she was not informed of her right to have a lawyer present prior to giving the statements, and that detectives shouted and screamed at her that she would be hanged if she did not tell the truth.

However, Flor Contemplacion conceded to the prosecutor that all statements were made voluntarily without any threat, inducement or promise being made before or during the recording of the statements by Tagalog interpreter Aurora Navarro or herself.

DPP Ponnampalam countered there was no evidence the Special Investigations Section had such a picture in their office, and that the police officers who interrogated Flor Contemplacion confirmed that no pictures were shown to her during her questioning.

Flor Contemplacion then strangled Maga from behind with an elastic cord and when she was dead dragged her body into a bathroom.

Flor Contemplacion then grabbed some of Maga's possessions and fled the apartment.

However, when called to the stand, Flor Contemplacion opted to remain silent.

On 26 January 1994, defence lawyer Sant Singh raised the defence of diminished responsibility during a hearing at the Court of Appeal in regards to Flor Contemplacion's conviction, stating that the issue of her mental state was never raised during her original trial and new exculpatory evidence had since come to light regarding her psychiatric condition during the murders.

An affidavit containing observations from Gleneagles Hospital consultant psychiatrist Doctor Terence Burke, who had studied the case in detail and since examined Flor Contemplacion personally, was requested to be submitted by Singh.

Flor Contemplacion claimed that on the day of the murders a mysterious "voice" instructed her to visit Maga at the Bukit Panjang apartment.

Flor Contemplacion testified that on the way to the apartment she began to feel strange and started trembling all over.

Flor Contemplacion suddenly realised she was gripping an elastic cord that was wrapped around Maga's neck and ran into the bathroom to vomit.

Flor Contemplacion claimed she could not control herself, and she picked up the child then submerged his head in the bucket of water.

Raj argued that Flor Contemplacion was simply suffering from a migraine on the day of the murders, adding that she had been examined previously by the consultant psychiatrist of Changi Prison hospital, Doctor Chan Khim Yew, and was determined to have no abnormality of the mind that would impair her mental reasoning abilities.

DPP Raj highlighted that Flor Contemplacion had not mentioned hearing voices or having hallucinations in any of her statements to the police after her arrest nor to Doctor Chan Khim Yew during his psychiatric examinations, having first reported these issues during interviews with Doctor Burke after her conviction and only submitting them in her defence during her retrial, which lead the court to consider her claims as fabrications and an exaggeration of a mild headache.

DPP Raj further asserted that the evidence of Doctor Chan Khim Yew should take precedence over the testimony of Doctor Burke, as Flor Contemplacion had first been examined by Doctor Chan Khim Yew a month after the murders and he had kept her under observation over 18 months throughout her detention in remand prison, whereas Doctor Burke had only had 4 interviews with her after she had been convicted.

The fact that both women had argued over the size of the package Maga refused to take with her to the Philippines on Flor Contemplacion's behalf was attributed as a more likely motive for the fatal attack, according to the judge.

Justice T S Sinnathuray highlighted that both Doctor Burke and Doctor Chan Khim Yew had agreed that a person suffering a partial complex seizure would have no recollection of the events that occurred during the episode, where as Contemplacion had given a vivid and detailed step by step account of what happened in Della's flat on the day of the murders, therefore her testimony satisfied him beyond reasonable doubt that she did not suffer from partial complex seizure at that time.

The judge likewise dismissed claims that Flor Contemplacion was unintelligent, as having witnessed her nimble performance during cross examination over several days he considered her a wilful and cunning person.

Defence lawyer Sant Singh argued that while the circumstances of the double murder she was convicted of were not in dispute, the original trial judge had erred in ruling the symptoms described by Flor Contemplacion as a mild migraine rather than temporal lobe epilepsy, which was a core element in her pleading guilty by diminished responsibility.

The court gave credence to her faultless work history as evidence she was not suffering from any serious illness, as she was trusted to look after young children while living in the same house as her employers, who would have easily spotted Flor Contemplacion having epileptic fits on a near monthly basis as she claimed.

Also, the fact that after her arrest Flor Contemplacion revealed to police the location of luxury items she had stolen from Maga provided strong circumstantial evidence that she was linked to the murders.

Sister Gerard later described Flor Contemplacion as being calm and at peace in her final moments.

Just before dawn on the morning of 17 March 1995, Flor Contemplacion was hanged at Changi Prison alongside three men convicted of drug trafficking.

Flor Contemplacion's execution went ahead as scheduled despite a personal plea for clemency from President of the Philippines Fidel Ramos to the Singaporean government.

Many Filipinos believed that Flor Contemplacion was innocent or at least insane, blaming the Singaporean government for a "lack of compassion", and the Philippine government for "not doing enough" to stop the execution.

The former Embassy labour attache Reynaldo Catapang later confirmed that they did not hire a private lawyer to represent Flor Contemplacion and allowed the Singaporean authorities to appoint a public defender instead, nor did they keep any records of the legal proceedings or transcripts of the court case itself.

Buensuceso was quoted by the Manila Chronicle that Flor Contemplacion rejected their legal advice not to sign any confession after her arrest, saying "she was very furious then and kept shouting that she had committed the crime".

Flor Contemplacion's body was carried from the airport to San Pablo, and thousands of Filipinos lined the route.

President Ramos sent a wreath to Flor Contemplacion's wake and offered financial assistance to Flor Contemplacion's four children, who were dependent on their mother's income as a domestic worker, pledging one month of his salary to a scholarship fund.

The 1995 edition of Anoa-Singa military exercise between the Filipino and Singaporean militaries which was ongoing at that time, abruptly ended when news of Flor Contemplacion's execution occurred, forcing the Singaporean troops to leave the country.

The Flor Contemplacion Story, directed by Joel Lamangan and starring Nora Aunor in the role of Contemplacion, was released by Viva Entertainment and won Best Picture in the Cairo Film Festival in 1995.

In Singapore, the Flor Contemplacion murders was one of the cases solved by Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the senior forensic pathologist.