"And so as a gesture of friendship between our peoples, we instituted the death penalty. The law specified two, and only two, methods of execution," Attorney Alejandro continues, "the gas chamber and the electric chair. As you can see, we took our lead—in this as in many other things, some wise and some foolish—from the Americans. Now, at the time, we did not have a gas chamber anywhere in the Philippines. A study was made. Plans were drawn up. Do you have any idea what is involved in constructing a proper gas chamber?" Attorney Alejandro now goes off on a fairly lengthy riff, but Randy finds it hard to concentrate until something in Attorney Alejandro’s tone tells him that a coda is approaching. ". . . prison service said, ‘How can you expect us to construct this space-age facility when we have not even the funds to purchase rat poison for the overcrowded prisons we already have?’ As you can see they were just whining for more funding. You see?" Attorney Alejandro raises his eyebrows significantly and sucks in his cheeks, as he reduces a good two or three centimeters of a Marlboro to ash. That he feels it necessary to explain the underlying motivations of the prison service so baldly seems to imply that his estimate of Randy’s intelligence is none too favorable, which given the way he was arrested at the airport might be fair enough. "So this left only the electric chair. But do you know what happened to the electric chair?"