Kin grieves execution of OFW in Kuwait, maintains her innocence

ZAMBOANGA CITY — The family of executed overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Jakatia Pawa grieved as news flashed on television of her death Wednesday.

“It was really painful because we did everything to save her,” Lt. Col. Angaris Pawa, a member of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and elder brother of Jakatia, said here minutes after the execution.

The elder Pawa said it was very painful, especially as his sister even made a phone call to him hours before the execution. He said Jakatia told him to take care of her children.

“Siya mismo ang tumawag kaninang madaling araw. Umiiyak at nagsabi nasa execution row na daw siya. Ipinagbilin nya na huwag kong pabayaan ang dalawang bata niya (She called at dawn. She was crying and said she's already at the execution row. She told me to take care of her two kids),” Pawa said at his residence in Barangay Guiwan.

He said he asked what his sister was talking about as she was “really crying.”

Angaris said they should have been informed two to three days about the execution so they could exhaust all the available pleadings.

“But there was none,” he said.

Angaris said they have already accepted the fate of his sister but maintained Jakatia's innocence. They believe she was a victim of a frame-up.

Jakatia, a native of Siocon town, Zamboanga del Norte, was sentenced to death by a Kuwait court in 2010 for allegedly killing her employer’s 22-year-old daughter.

Angaris said that during his recent visit to Kuwait, his sister maintained her innocence and even cited that the victim’s relative might have perpetrated the murder due to the victim’s alleged illicit affair with a neighbor. 

He said that he was even upbeat last week of the possible commutation of his sister’s sentence as the lawyer handling the case was the sister of the king of Kuwait.

“Tanggap na namin. Pero masakit dahil we believe she was really innocent (We already accepted it. But it is painful because we believe she was really innocent),” he said.

At the moment, the family's plan is to ask the Kuwait government to give his sister a decent burial done according to Muslim rites since they cannot bring home the remains following the Muslim tradition that their dead must be buried within 24 hours.