Body of Pinay slain in Singapore flown home today

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.

The dismembered remains of Jane Parangan La Puebla will be flown to Manila today, accompanied by her husband Crusaldo La Puebla, her mother and aunt, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement.

Ambassador to Singapore Belen Anota said La Puebla’s remains will arrive aboard Singapore Airlines flight SQ 76 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at around 8:40 p.m.

Meanwhile in Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya, thousands are expected to flock to the murdered Filipina maid’s hometown to get a glimpse of her remains.

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 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.

Defense counsel Shashi Nathan told reporters in Singapore the psychiatric tests could take days.

La Puebla’s remains will be taken from Manila to her home province of Nueva Vizcaya, about 200 kilometers north of Manila.

Department of Transportation and Communications spokesman Thompson Lantion, whose office will oversee the return of La Puebla’s remains from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Bagabag, yesterday said the body’s scheduled arrival at the airport would be at 8 p.m. tonight. A nine-day wake will be held in the victim’s hometown.

Earlier, Lantion, together with the provincial government led by Governor Luisa LLoren-Cuaresma, facilitated the flight of La Puebla’s husband and aunt to Singapore to recover the remains.

Last week, the provincial board passed a resolution condemning La Puebla’s gruesome killing in Singapore where she was working as a maid since 2002.

The resolution calls on the Philippine government ‘Not to let the case pass without justice, especially that Overseas Filipino Workers (like Jane La Puebla), who are called the modern heroes for sacrificing their personal and family concerns, play a vital role in boosting the Philippine economy."

La Puebla, together with her younger sister, Julie Fe, were raised in Bagabag by close relatives from their father’s side while their mother stayed in Bambang town here. The murdered Filipina maid was only three years old when their father, then a soldier, died in Patikul, Jolo in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, 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,have appealed to President 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, Marvin Sy, Charlie Lagasca