Family prepare to visit Filipina maid on death row in UAE

AL AIN // Relatives of the Filipina maid who is facing the death penalty after being convicted of killing her Emirati employer are to travel here to offer her emotional support.

Grace Princesa, the Philippines ambassador to the UAE, said her country’s government was arranging for the parents of Jennifer Dalquez to fly to the UAE. “We are now awaiting updates from the department of foreign affairs [DFA] in Manila on the matter,” Ms Princesa said.

Charles Jose, a spokesman for the DFA, said his organisation was processing the required documents for the family of the convicted maid.

Dalquez, 28, who comes from General Santos City in the southern Philippines, was sentenced to death by an Al Ain Court for stabbing her employer to death on December 7 last year. She claimed the act was self-defence after her employer tried to rape her.

The Philippine embassy has since provided Dalquez with a defence lawyer to appeal against her sentence. Overseas Filipino workers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law are helped through their government's legal assistance fund.

Priority is usually given to the payment of lawyers to represent those accused of serious crimes or who are facing the death penalty.

“Her legal counsel filed an appeal in the last week of May, and is currently preparing the ‘memorandum of defence’ for the appeal,” Ms Princesa said.

The next hearing has been set for September 3 in Al Ain.

The Philippine labour secretary, Rosalinda Baldoz, who visited Dalquez in jail on June 18, said “she had high hopes” that the appeal would be successful, reported the online news portal Rappler.

The department of social welfare and development in Manila meanwhile is providing educational assistance to Dalquez’s two children. “The overseas workers welfare administration has also extended monetary assistance to the family, despite the fact that she is no longer an Owwa member,” Ms Princesa said.

Owwa is an attached agency of the Philippine's labour department that provides assistance to overseas Filipino workers and their families. Members pay a Dh92 fee every two years to receive financial, medical and educational benefits.