Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has rejected any offer of “blood money” for the murder of overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Jeanelyn Villavende in Kuwait, saying the lawyer hired by the Philippine government to prosecute is not authorized to suggest or accept blood money from her killers.
“THERE WILL BE BLOOD @DFAPHL for Jeanelyn Villavende. I renounce & reject any offer of blood money for her torture/murder. I want two lives for the life they took. The topnotch lawyer hired by DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) to prosecute is not authorized to suggest or accept blood money from her killers,” Locsin said on Twitter.
An embalming certificate released by Kuwait’s Ministry of Health has confirmed that Villavende was killed on Dec. 28, 2019.
She died of “acute failure of heart and respiration” as a result of shock and multiple injuries in the vascular nervous system.
Villavende was 26.
According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), Villavende’s family last spoke to her in October 2019.
When they tried to call her again on December 13, her female employer answered and said Villavende was “busy.”
Kuwaiti authorities have since detained Villavende’s employer.
Philippine authorities slammed Villavende’s death, describing it as a “clear violation” of the agreement signed by Kuwait and the Philippines in 2018.
The agreement, which came at the end of a diplomatic crisis over the murder of another OFW, Joanna Demafelis, seeks to uphold the protection of the rights and welfare of Filipino workers in the Gulf state.
After the death of yet another OFW in Kuwait, DoLE ordered a partial deployment ban to Kuwait where over 240,000 Filipinos are currently employed, 1/2 of whom are female domestic workers.
Locsin has also warned that he would fire anyone at the DFA made suggestions about blood money.
“If I catch anyone in @DFA making that suggestion they’re fired. I will not accept an improvement in Kuwait’s labor standards either. All I care about is blood for blood.
Meanwhile, I will post her autopsy photos in the halls of DFA,” he tweeted.
In Islamic law, victims of crime are recognized as having rights. The victim has a say on how the criminal is to be punished. In general, Islamic law calls for murderers to face the death penalty.
The victim’s heirs, however, may choose to spare the murderer from the death penalty in exchange for monetary damages. The murderer will still be sentenced by a judge, possibly to a lengthy prison term, but the death penalty will be taken off the table.
This principle is known as “diyyah” or blood money.
It is more appropriately referred to as “victim’s compensation.”
If the victim or the victim’s representatives would accept monetary payment, it was considered an act of forgiveness that, in turn, lessens the criminal penalty.
Source: The Manila Times, Staff, January 26, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
