Filipino executed in Saudi Arabia for murder

A FILIPINO in Saudia Arabia has been executed at the weekend for killing a Saudi national, according to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

“The Philippine government provided legal assistance and exhausted all possible remedies, including a presidential letter of appeal,” DFA spokesperson Ma. Teresita C. Daza told reporters in a WhatsApp message on Tuesday.

She said the victim’s family refused to accept “blood money” to pardon the Filipino.

The DFA official also said the state will not reveal the name of the Filipino upon the request of his family.

The agency said last year that 81 Filipino workers abroad have pending cases that are punishable by death.

It secured 354 pardons from 2018 to 2022, with most cases filed due to drug trafficking, prostitution, and theft.

The DFA also got 135 acquittals through its legal assistance fund in 2022, 132 of which were cases in the Middle East.

In 2022, the Saudi government promised President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. that it would settle the unpaid wages and other benefits of overseas Filipino workers who had been laid off by private employers from 2015 to 2016.

The Department of Migrant Workers last year reported the death of 32-year-old domestic workers in Saudi Arabia who might have been murdered due to stab wounds found on her body.

Based on 2021 data from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, 60% of overseas Filipino workers were women that year. Data also showed that 75% of 23,986 cases of abuse were against women. — John Victor D. Ordoñez