President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is to send Vice President Manuel “Noli” de Castro Jr. to Kuwait to appeal for the life of a Filipino worker facing death in the Arab Gulf state. De Castro will carry a letter from President Arroyo addressed to the Emir of Kuwait “interceding for the life” of Jakatia Pawa, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on its website. The Filipina maid was convicted on the charge of murder for allegedly stabbing to death Dala Al-Naqi, the 22-year-old daughter of her Kuwaiti employer on May 14, 2007. The Kuwaiti Criminal Court (trial court) sentenced Pawa to death on April 14, 2008. The Kuwaiti Court of appeals affirmed the earlier decision on April 14, 2009. Earlier reports said tha the Kuwaiti Supreme Court also upheld the conviction weeks ago. “The vice president will carry a letter from President Arroyo addressed to the Emir of Kuwait interceding for the life of Ms. Pawa,” the department said in a statement released Sunday. Negotiations are also under way with the family of the victim to accept the payment of “blood money” in exchange for lifting the death sentence, the statement said. It added that Arroyo's office had already approved the government release of this unspecified payment for the blood money to the victim's family to settle the private rights aspect of the case. It has not yet been determined when De Castro, who acts as a special envoy on behalf of the nine million Filipinos working overseas, will depart for Kuwait, the foreign department's statement said. An official at De Castro's office Monday confirmed the vice president would visit Kuwait, but said no date for his trip had been set. Lawyers defending Pawa claimed that it couldn't have been the Filipina maid who killed the woman, and that other people close to the victim must be behind the crime. The DFA said that this theory was “bolstered by the fact that according to DNA tests, “the blood found on the murder weapon did not match hers.” Representing Pawa at her trial were two top law firms hired by the Philippine embassy in Kuwait – the Khalil Al-Qattan Law Offices and forensic lawyers from Abdullah Al
