Manila, Philippines (AHN) -- The Chinese government on Thursday allowed Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay to visit China on Friday and plead before its high court to spare the lives of three Filipinos scheduled for execution next week for drug trafficking.

Binay was told through diplomatic channels that his meeting with the chief justice of the Supreme People's Court in Beijing was set. He is expected to ask for a stay of the executions on humanitarian grounds as the Filipinos were victims of drug trafficking syndicates.

Earlier, Beijing had refused to accept phone calls from President Benigno Aquino III, who wanted to ask President Hu Jintao to grant clemency for Ramon Credo, 42, Sally Villanueva, 32, and Elizabeth Batain, 38.

Credo and Villanueva are scheduled to be executed on Monday in Xiamen while Batain is set to die in Shenzhen on Tuesday. The three were sentenced to death for carrying more than four kilos of heroin at the Xiamen and Shenzhen airports in 2008.

The Filipinos and their lawyers claim they were asked to carry bags they did not know contain illegal drugs.

If the sentences are carried out, it would be the first time for China to execute Filipinos for crimes committed in the country.

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