THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) exhausted all efforts to help executed overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Joselito Zapanta but the Sudanese victim's family had pushed for his execution, the agency's official said Monday at a Senate hearing.
"The Philippine embassy in Riyadh provided Mr. Zapanta with immediate consular and legal assistance during the course of his prosecution and in the appeal of his case after his initial conviction by the trial court. This assistance continued until the end," DFA Undersecretary Rafael Seguis told Senator Cynthia Villar, who presided the inquiry on Zapanta's case.
(Video by Ruth Abbey Gita/Sunnex)
Zapanta, 35, was executed in Saudi Arabia on December 29, 2015 for the murder of his Sudanese landlord Imam Salah Ibrahim over a rental dispute.
The Philippine government tried to save Zapanta from execution by raising P43-million blood money but it fell short to P23 million.
Despite this, Seguis said Ibrahim’s family may have accepted the P23 million but it chose not to take the money, as they wanted Zapanta to be executed.
"The family of the murdered victim may accept the blood money, in exchange for issuing affidavit of forgiveness or tanazul. The issuance of tanazul may lead to the reduction of a death sentence of a convict into a fixed prison term, which consequently spares of his or her life," he said.
"(Ibrahim's family) really pushed (for Zapanta's execution), really made it difficult (for Philippine government to save him). Actually, the Sudanese family really wanted Zapanta be executed. They know we could not give the five million Saudi riyals (they demanded)," he added.
The family of Ibrahim demanded the payment of five million Saudi riyals, or approximately P55 million, as blood money from Zapanta but the Philippine government was only able to raise 1.845 million Saudi riyals, short of 2.154 million Saudi riyals.
Zapanta's mother, Mona, asked as to what would happen to the blood money being collected.
"To the DFA and our government, I just want to ask what their plans are to the blood money that was being raised? It’s been two months but they still have no plan," she said.
Seguis did not give a definite answer because the donors have not yet divulged what they would do to their donations.
But if there will be no response from the donors, he said the money will go back to them.
ACT-OFW partylist spokesman John Bertiz then asked President Benigno Aquino III to make public the works of the technical working group (TWG) he created to draw up clear-cut guidelines on the disposition of blood money for overseas Filipino workers on death row.
The Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs acts as the secretariat of the blood money committee while the secretaries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Labor and Employment serve as its permanent members.
“It has been almost five years now since the TWG has been created but we are still at a loss on any guidelines that govern the disposition of blood money raised by the government and private donors for OFWs in death row,” Bertiz said.
Villar said she hoped the hearing would enlighten the concerned agencies to learn from Zapanta's case and come up with a clearer guidelines on how to aid assistance to distressed OFWs.
“We’re not here for Mr. Zapanta. That’s already done, but we are here to learn from our mistake. We have to correct our mistake through our experience. Only our experience will teach us how to correct our mistake and prevent it in the future. We’re here to learn from our past experiences and make something out of them,” the senator said. (Sunnex)