Kuwaiti emir commutes death sentence of Filipina

MANILA, Philippines — (UPDATE 3) The emir of Kuwait has commuted the death sentence of Filipina maid May Vecina to life imprisonment, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

The DFA said Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah signed on July 8 an Amiri decree commuting the death sentence of Vecina to life sentence.

This came seven months after the Kuwaiti ruler spared from execution another Filipino overseas worker, Marilou Ranario, following a visit by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Ranario was convicted of killing her employer.

Kuwait’s supreme court upheld in April the death sentence against Vecina for killing her seven-year-old ward Salem Sulaiman Al-Otaib, and attempting to kill his 13-year-old brother Abdulla by slitting his throat and stabbing his 17-year-old sister Hajer on January 6 last year.

The 28-year-old Vecina, like Ranario, was sentenced to hang and only the Kuwaiti ruler could save her life.

In December 2007, President Arroyo met with the emir to personally appeal for the lives of Ranario and Vecina. The emir immediately granted the commutation in Ranario's
case.

Ranario, 33, a school teacher who left her two children to try her luck in the desert emirate, was sentenced to death for killing her female employer, Najat Mahmoud Faraj Mubarak, in January 2005, for allegedly mistreating her and insulting Filipinos.

The DFA said the successful commutation was brought about by President Arroyo's efforts to protect and promote the rights and welfare of the eight million overseas Filipinos.

"President Arroyo takes particular interest in the prospects of some two million OFWs in the Middle East,” it said.

In 2006, Arroyo also personally asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to save Sara Dematera from the executioner's sword.

About 73,000 Filipinos, including 60,000 women employed mostly as housemaids, work in oil-rich Kuwait and earn less than $200 a month on average. - Veronica Uy, INQUIRER.net, July 17, 2008