The BBC's Simon Ingram: A final vigil was held for the condemned man

Echegaray - a 38-year-old house painter - was pronounced dead at 0719 GMT after being given a lethal injection in a Manila prison.

His last words were reported by prison officials to be: "Baby, forgive me".

The Philippines Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal to halt the execution.

President Joseph Estrada, who has led the move to bring back capital punishment as a deterrent to violent crime, said the execution would serve as a warning.

"It is proof of the government's determination to maintain law and order. This administration will prove that crime does not pay.

"The crime committed by Mr Echegaray [was] an act of bestiality, which deserves the stiffest punishment under the law."

Campaigners urged the president to reconsider the death penalty

House of Representatives Speaker Manuel Villar said: "The execution of child rapist Leo Echegaray is a landmark event that upholds the rule of law in our land."

The execution has prompted a fierce debate in the Philippines. The powerful Roman Catholic church is strongly opposed, but correspondents say most Filipinos believe it will reduce the soaring crime rate.

Archbishop Oscar Cruz, the head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, said: "Life is taken away, not by accident, not by sickness not even by a criminal, but by no less than the state."

Simon Ingram reports from Manila: "Death penalty debate caused a deep schism"

And the Free Legal Assistance Group which provided Echegaray's defence, said: "We strongly condemn the execution It has fanned the flames of murder and has taught our children - our future leaders - to meet violence with violence.''

Barbed wire

Security was tight around the prison in the Manila suburb of Muntinlupa. Nearby schools were closed and barbed wire barricades erected at the prison gates to hold back large numbers of reporters and both pro and anti-death penalty campaigners.

This was the first execution in the Philippines since 1976. But since capital punishment was restored in January 1994 in response to soaring crime, more than 900 other people have also been sentenced to death.

Accompanied by a priest and surrounded by prison guards holding his arms, Echegaray wore a button on his chest reading "Execute justice not people," and carried a Bible.

He wore an orange wristband marked with the word "Erap" - a nickname for President Joseph Estrada, who has refused to reconsider his case.

No pardon

The Philippine president was the only person who could grant Echegaray a last-minute reprieve, but on Thursday he ordered the telephone hotline between the presidential palace and the prison to be cut, saying he had no intention of granting clemency.

Echegaray's wife Zinaida prays in front of Death Chamber

But Zinaida Javier, who Echegaray married in prison last December, maintained her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted in 1994 - repeatedly raping his 11-year-old step-daughter by a previous wife.

She was one of the 27 people who watched the execution through a one-way mirror as thousands milled outside the prison's gates.

The Philippines abolished capital punishment in 1987 but restored it in 1994 for "heinous" crimes such as rape, drug-trafficking, murder and kidnapping.