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President Gloria Arroyo is to visit Kuwait on Sunday to seek
clemency for a Filipina maid sentenced to death for killing her
employer, a senior aide said on Friday.
The President, who is winding up a European
tour, is scheduled to call on Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad
al-Sabah and return to Manila later Sunday, presidential spokesman
Ignacio Bunye told reporters.
Manila is pulling out all the stops to save
Marilou Ranario from the gallows.
In 2005, the domestic worker was sentenced to
die by hanging for killing her 46-year-old female employer, whom she
said had insulted her and her country.
The verdict was affirmed by Kuwait’s Supreme
Court last month, leaving appeals to the emir as the last resort.
Vice-President Noli de Castro previously met
with the victim’s family and sought their forgiveness in the hope
of paying “blood money” to spare Ranario’s life, though that
was rejected.
Meanwhile, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary
Alberto Romulo urged the public to avoid rash actions in relation to
Ranario’s case.
“The government continues to make
representations on her behalf, all the way through the Kuwait
justice system,” Romulo said. “For her sake, let us maintain
unity and sobriety, avoiding rash words and actions that could make
things worse for our compatriots in distress.”
The President earlier planned to make the side
trip to Kuwait on Tuesday, before she returns to Manila from a
private visit with her family in Spain. The Tuesday schedule was not
pushing through, apparently because the emir was not available. But
on Thursday night, Bunye said Mrs. Arroyo’s Kuwait stop will push
through.
On Wednesday, Ermita said it would make no sense
if the President would proceed to Kuwait without a confirmed
appointment with the emir whose signature is required to carry out
the death verdict on Ranario.
Her case has drawn widespread attention in the
Philippines, whose economy relies heavily on remittances from nearly
eight million Filipino overseas workers.
Of that eight million, about 73,000 work in the
Gulf state. About 60,000 of them are women employed mainly as maids
and earning an average of less than $200 a month, labor groups say.
--AFP with Angelo S. Samonte and Xinhua
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