The execution of Jakatia Pawa in Kuwait only stresses that the death penalty should never be reinstated in the country.
This was the stance of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines as bishops expressed their sympathies with the family of Pawa, who was hanged on Wednesday afternoon.
CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop Socrates Villegas extended the CBCP’s condolences to the kin of the Filipina, who was executed for allegedly killing her employer’s daughter.
In a statement, Villegas expressed sadness at Pawa’s fate, which he noted only underscores his abhorrence at capital punishment.
“The fact that Jakatia protested her innocence to the end of her life only underscores the abhorrence at the death penalty. The sadness that we feel at Jakatia’s death should make us all advocates against the death penalty,” he said on Thursday.
Pawa was executed on Wednesday afternoon in Kuwait for allegedly killing her employer’s 22-year-old daughter in May 2007.
READ: OFW Jakatia Pawa hanged to death in Kuwait—DFA
Her hanging caught the public by surprise, although the Department of Foreign Affairs said Malacañang was aware of her case and that all efforts were made to save her life.
Balanga bishop Ruperto Santos also expressed sadness at Pawa’s death, adding that a life and a dream was lost and shattered.
“Whatever region or religion she is a Filipina. She is one of us. And we are affected. We have to do something. Life matters,” said Santos, chairperson of the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.
The prelate urged the government to save other overseas Filipino workers who are imprisoned for various crimes in other countries.
“The government should be not complacent nor rely on last two minutes. They have to act, decisively and swiftly for who are incarcerated,” he said.
Like Villegas, Santos called on the government not to push through with its plan to reinstate the death penalty for heinous crimes, citing Pawa’s plight.
“If there will be penalty in our country, we will lose any moral authority and legality to ask clemency for our Filipinos who are sentenced to death,” he added. CDG