Do all you can to save Sarah, Ramos orders

Do all you can to save Sarah, Ramos orders

MANILA (Reuter): President Fidel Ramos is sending a high-level mission to the United Arab Emirates with orders "to do all you can to save" a 16-year-old Filipina maid from execution, officials said yesterday.

As the government scrambled to save the life of Sarah Balabagan, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee charged she had been "set up for the gallows" to protect the reputation of her employer whom she had accused of raping her.

Another senator blamed the Philippine Foreign Office for the affair, saying it would not have happened if it had not issued the maid a passport that allowed her to work abroad although a minor.

A court in the UAE last weekend sentenced Balabagan to death by firing squad for killing her employer, stabbing him 34 times.

Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon said Ramos was sending Labor Secretary Jose Brillantes and Executive Secretary Ruben Torres, the presidential chief of staff, to Abu Dhabi to appeal for Balabagan's release.

Ramos' order was "do all you can to save her life," Siazon told reporters after testifying before the Senate committee investigating the case of the Filipino Moslem girl.

The date for the mission's trip is yet to be fixed.

Another court previously sentenced her to seven years in jail after concluding she was raped.

UAE President Sheikh Zaid Bin Sultan al-Nahayan, after Manila lobbied for her acquittal, ordered a retrial, which ended with the second court condemning her to death. It rejected her contention she was raped.

Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, at the hearing, questioned why there had to be a retrial which, he said, ended up protecting the interests of Balabagan's employer.

"It's very clear that this is a set-up... To me, at least, this is my impression, this poor girl was set up for the gallows," he told Siazon and other officials at the hearing.

The case of Balabagan, one of 4.2 million Filipinos working overseas, has provoked the similar uproar to that which swept the country in March after another maid, Flor Contemplacion, was hanged in Singapore for double murder.

Officials told the hearing illegal recruiters had faked Balabagan's papers so that her age would appear as 28 in her passport when she went to the UAE two years ago at age 14.

Committee chair Senator Ernesto Maceda demanded charges be filed immediately against the officials who signed the passport.

"Unless you can file the case (against passport officials) this week there will be no hearing on your budget. Is that clear, Mr. Secretary?" snapped Maceda, who chairs a committee whose approval is crucial for passing the government budget.

"Very clear," Siazon said.

Maceda suggested the government use whatever leverage it had on the UAE to secure the maid's freedom.

The officials said the UAE was a major importer of local garments and food products and that Emirates Airlines had recently been given temporary landing rights in Manila despite the absence of an air services agreement between the two countries.

The UAE, on the other hand, is a major oil supplier and big labor market, employing 80,000 Filipinos, they said.