KIDAPAWAN CITY -- A stream of relatives and neighbors, all wanting to hug her, welcomed Mae Vecina in the village of Kilada in Matalam, North Cotabato, at a homecoming that the overseas Filipino worker didn?t think was possible following her death sentence in Kuwait.

At the back of her mind, however, are thoughts of what she left behind in the Kuwaiti jail where she had spent some of the most harrowing days of her life -- five Filipinos who are in death row.

People in Kilada greeted her with food and a simple thanksgiving party. ?Everyone was emotional. The hugging seemed endless,? said one relative of the ?instant family reunion.?

Vecina arrived at the Davao International Airport where her husband Leo and children, Queeny and King James, were waiting. They traveled for more than two hours to their home in North Cotabato.

?Thank you so much for everyone who helped save my life,? she told reporters at the airport. She said she was thankful first to God for ?giving me a second life.?

Vecina was sentenced to death by a Kuwaiti court that found her guilty of killing her employer?s 7-year-old son in 2007. After negotiations initiated by the Philippine government, she was granted full pardon by the emir of Kuwait, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah.

The crime haunted her until she returned home, one that she could not believe she had committed, but was perhaps driven to do so by the abuses she suffered under her employer.

?I?m not capable of doing it, but perhaps I lost control of my mind because I didn?t have sleep, I didn?t eat,? she said.

Vecina admitted losing hope of ever coming home again.

But while feeling safe now, she could not help think of the other Filipinos in the Kuwaiti jail. She recalled their names as Marilou Ranario, Maria Fe Crusado, Minerva Tayag, Jakatia Pawa and Bienvenido Espino Jr.

She couldn?t narrate in detail the cases that the five faced, but she remembered only one thing, that they are on death row.

The sentences of Ranario, Crusado and Tayag had already been commuted to life imprisonment.

?I appeal for help for those who are still in Kuwait and other countries who are on death row,? she said. ?Their lives are difficult as prisoners especially since they?re in a foreign country. Even in prison, they should be visited by their families.? Carlo C. Agamon, Inquirer Mindanao