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Sunday, September 25, 2005
Pinay maid's remains from Singapore due Sunday
MANILA -- Authorities in Singapore have released the remains of a Filipino maid who was killed in the city-state to her family, the Foreign Affairs Department said Saturday.
Singaporean forensic experts have completed their autopsy of Jane Parangan La Puebla's remains Saturday, after which the parts were released to the Philippine Embassy.
The dismembered remains of La Puebla will be flown to Manila on Sunday, accompanied by her husband Crusaldo La Puebla, her mother and aunt, the foreign office said in a statement.
The Philippine Embassy in Singapore has arranged a Saturday evening funeral mass for La Puebla, it said.
The remains were released after an autopsy was carried out in Singapore and overseen by two pathologists from the Philippines. The statement did not say when the autopsy was conducted, but Philippine officials said earlier it was scheduled for Friday.
Another Filipino maid, Guen Garlejo Aguilar, 29, has been arrested and charged with the Sept. 7 killing and dismembering of La Puebla, 26.
Aguilar allegedly chopped up La Puebla and dumped the remains in plastic bags, which were found scattered around Singapore. She will undergo a state-ordered psychiatric assessment next week, her lawyer said Friday.
Lawyer Sashi Nathen, Aguilar's defense counsel, said her client's involvement in the La Puebla's killing couldn't be assumed.
Aguilar's counsel said they are now working on two possible defenses that they could use as the hearing progresses.
Aguilar allegedly killed La Puebla and chopped her body to pieces. She placed the body parts in two bags, which she left in separate places in Singapore's commercial and leisure district.
La Puebla's remains will be taken from Manila to her home province of Nueva Vizcaya, about 200 kilometers north of the Philippine capital.
The forensic pathologists from the University of the Philippines and the National Bureau of Investigation were invited to observe the autopsy by the Singapore government. An NBI investigator who accompanied them is to be given access to other aspects of the Singapore police case.
Aguilar's family and officials from her hometown of Tagudin in Ilocos Sur province, north of Manila, have appealed to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to intervene in the case. They fear Aguilar might suffer the same fate as another Filipino maid, Flor Contemplacion, who was executed in Singapore in 1995 for murder despite appeals--and outrage--from Manila.
Tempers flared over the execution and the two countries temporarily withdrew their respective ambassadors. Relations were normalized a year later.
About 140,000 foreign maids work in Singapore. Most are from the Philippines and Indonesia. (AP/Sunnex)
(September 25, 2005 issue)
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