There are at least 71 Overseas Filipino Workers on Death Row in various parts of the world, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
However, DFA spokesperson Charles Jose said that the number has in fact decreased over the past few years after several death sentences were either reduced or suspended.
Jose cited China as an example in which a substantial number of cases involving OFWs received death sentences with two year reprieve.
“When the two year reprieve has been consummated, automatically the convict will be removed from Death Row and the sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment,” he said.
There are also Death Row cases of OFWs in the Middle East in which negotiations for blood money have been successful resulting to the commutation of the death sentences.
Several of these cases are seldom reported to the public because the blood money was obtained through donations given by foreign philanthropists.
“The Philippine government does not pay blood money in the first place,” Jose said.
According to Jose, the execution of 44-year-old Jakatia Pawa in Kuwait last Wednesday was the first death sentence of an OFW to be carried out in a foreign land for a long time. (Roy C. Mabasa)