Ramos slams UAE flag-burning protest over maid

Ramos slams UAE flag-burning protest over maid

MANILA (AFP): Philippine President Fidel Ramos yesterday
slammed protesters who burned United Arab Emirates flags as he
named a special Moslem envoy to the Middle East to plead for
condemned Filipino maid Sarah Balabagan.

The 16-year-old Moslem girl was sentenced to death in the
Emirates last weekend for stabbing to death her employer.

"The main effort of every Filipino now is to help Sarah
through our collective efforts. And such instances as flag-
burning which may still be happening certainly should be
condemned by all of us," he told a news conference.

"Even if these are legitimate manifestations of protest over
the unfair decision on Sarah, we must not exacerbate her
situation. We may be adding to her misery," he added.

Some Filipinos charged that protesters who burned UAE flags
were to blame for the girl's fate.

Abner Afuang, a policeman who had burned one UAE flag outside
the country's consulate here, said on local television yesterday
that he would end his protest actions so as not to hurt the
chances of Balabagan's acquittal on appeal.

Earlier, Ramos named retired Supreme Court justice Abdulwahid
Abidin to plead for Balabagan's life.

The UAE court said in a retrial there was no evidence to back
the maid's claims that she killed in self-defense after her boss
tried to rape her.

UAE President Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan al-Nahayan canceled an
earlier verdict from June sentencing Balabagan to seven years in
jail for manslaughter and backing her claim of rape.

Abidin, a career jurist, was vested with "full powers to
include his rendering of legal support and counsel," and was also
tasked to plead for the cause of other Filipino workers in
Islamic countries, Ramos said.

Abidin will leave for the Emirates along with three members of
the cabinet led by Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon, but the date
of their departure has yet to be announced.

The Philippine government is anxious to avoid another
execution, which would be the second this year involving a
Filipina maid.

Manila downgraded diplomatic ties with Singapore in March
after it rejected its appeal to re-investigate the case of Flor
Contemplacion, who was subsequently executed for two 1991 murders
which many Filipinos alleged she did not commit.

An Islamic court in the city of Al-Ain has set Oct. 30 to hear
Balabagan's appeal, her lawyer Mohammad al-Amin said in Dubai
last Tuesday. He expressed hope that the girl would be reprieved.

Meanwhile, a Kuwait Airways plane has flown to the Philippines
about 55 Filipina maids who had fled their employers to take
refuge in their embassy in Kuwait City, the Kuwait Times
newspaper reported.

The group was accompanied on Sunday by four senior officials
from the Kuwaiti immigration services, who will hold talks in
Manila with their Filipino counterparts.