MANILA – Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Filipino worker who was found guilty of murdering his Arab employer in 2010.
The 33-year old Carlito Lana, who converted to Islam, was executed on December 12 and had been immediately buried in Saudi Arabia in accordance with the Muslim tradition.
Lana, from General Trias town in Cavite province, was first deployed in Saudi Arabia on March 2010 and completed his 2-year contract, and was redeployed to Saudi on September 2010 with the same employer.
The migrant rights group Migrante-Middle East has blamed President Benigno Aquino and Filipino embassy officials led by Ambassador Ezzadin Tago and Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario for the government’s failure to provide proper and adequate legal assistance to Lana.
“Head must roll over OFW Carlito Lana beheading. There was failure of responsibility from the Aquino government and his foreign affairs officials who failed to provide prompt, proper, and adequate legal assistance to him,” said John Leonard Monterona, the group’s regional coordinator.
“We hold Mr. Aquino liable due to his apathy and neglect on the deplorable plight of OFWs abroad. And his liability would be concretized by heading on our demand to immediately discharge Philippine Ambassador Ezzadin Tago and Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario,” he added.
Manila said it was shocked to learn that Lana had been beheaded. Lana’s case was first reported in January 2011 by Migrante International after it received the report from Joselito Zapanta, another Filipino worker.
“We have endorsed Lana’s case to the DFA asking prompt and adequate legal assistance since February 2011. On March 15, 2011, we have sent a follow-up letter asking for an update on the case, but there was no reply from the DFA. Lana’s mother and Migrante staff have been going back and forth every month to the DFA to get an update until August 2012, but to no avail,” Monterona said.
He said had the DFA informed Migrante regularly on Lana’s case, they could have intensified the campaign to save the Filipino’s life.
“The Aquino government did not learn the lesson we’ve got that if we, the various OFW groups and the international community forge our campaign to save an OFW on death row, we could move heaven and earth and hope that the doomed OFW could be saved. And we have done this with success from our previous OFW on death row that were saved,” Monterona said. (Mindanao Examiner)
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