|
By Katrice R. Jalbuena Reporter
A Filipina overseas Filipino
worker (OFW) in China was sentenced to
death for smuggling heroin into that country, the Department of
Foreign Affairs confirmed Wednesday.
Philippine Consul General in
Guangzhou Shulan Primavera reported to the Manila office that
Marissa Collado, a 40-year-old resident of Bulacan province, was
convicted by the Guangzhou Municipal People’s Intermediate Court
on April 2 for smuggling heroin into China from Nepal. She was
handed a death sentence that was suspended for two years.
Primavera said she is monitoring
the case and has met with Collado and her legal counsel. Philippine
officials are appealing the verdict to the Guandong People’s High
Court.
The Foreign Affairs department is
working to have Collado’s death sentence commuted to life
imprisonment. But the department conceded that the case is a touchy
issue, given that the offense is drug trafficking.
“We will intervene to request
for the commutation of the sentence to save her life. But because we
ourselves are also strongly against drug trafficking, we cannot
treat it lightly,” said Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs
Esteban Conejos.
The Foreign Affairs department,
under the instructions of President Gloria Arroyo, has been
monitoring about 53 cases of overseas Filipinos on death row in
various countries. Around 21 of those cases were commuted to life
imprisonment.
Conejos said the department is
monitoring at least 28 cases of Filipinos on death row in Saudi
Arabia, Malaysia, Brunei, Kuwait and the United States.
The Filipino death-row inmates
include three female OFWs who were employed as domestic helpers in
Kuwait—Marilou Ranario, May Vecina and Jakatia Mandon.
While Conejos assured that
government is on top of the situation and is exhausting all possible
means to save the lives of OFWs in distress, he said it is also
necessary that authorities be sensitive to the sentiments of the
host country where the alleged crimes were committed.
The most sensitive of the current
batch of cases would be that of Vecina, who was convicted by Kuwaiti
courts for the murder of her employer’s 6-year-old son and the
attempted murder of the boy’s teenage brother and sister.
The next course of action to save
Vecina’s life involves soft diplomacy—that is, appealing to the
Emir of Kuwait and to the victim’s family.
In case of Collado, who was
convicted in a lower court, there is still a chance to appeal and
commute her sentence, which is what the government is pursuing.
|
