Once a Jolly Hangman (18 page)

Exactly why Aguilar killed her friend never came out at her trial. Some unconfirmed reports said they quarrelled over money. Another said it was over a love triangle with a Singapore taxi driver. The hunt for the killer began when dismembered parts of a woman's body were found in various part of the city. Arms and legs were found in bags in and around an Orchard Road shopping centre. Then a woman's partly clad torso was found at McRitchie Reservoir, a beauty spot popular with joggers, picnickers and tourists. It puzzled detectives that Aguilar would kill and dismember her close friend then dump her body parts where everyone could see them. Back home the case made garish headlines but everyone from the president down was determined Aguilar got a fair trial and would not be cast aside and executed by Singapore as just another 'havoc maid'.

This time the authorities in Singapore and the Philippines quickly realised the potential damage the case could cause again if it was allowed to get out of control. The
turnout from Aguilar's embassy and the ambassador himself made that very clear. They would be watching every aspect of the police investigation and trial very closely. Her husband was flown in at government expense. He was allowed to see her in her cell as soon as he arrived. This was something almost unheard of in Singapore while a serious case like this was still under investigation. Even though it was being forced to do so, Singapore was doing its best to show a little rare humanity. Aguilar broke into tears as she first saw her husband, Edwin, flanked by the large contingent of her fellow citizens stand shoulder to shoulder inside the courtroom. All this kind attention to Aguilar's welfare was a far cry from the way Flor Contemplacion was treated. She had been virtually ignored by her embassy until it was too late for any kind of government level intervention or support. Bilateral ties had since been normalised and Singapore was once again a major investor in the Philippines but
there would always be a bitter taste in the mouths of many Filipinos - and Singapore knew it only too well. The Philippine government also appealed to its media to stop sensational reporting. 'We don't want a repeat of the Flor Contemplacion furore', Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez told The Straits Times. He feared they could whip up public sentiment and trigger an unwarranted backlash against Singapore again. But this time both countries were determined not to have a replay of that particular tragedy. To emphasise this Ambassador Anota made it clear they would be hands-on all the way. Daily press releases about what was happening were issued by his embassy every few days. Singapore officials also issued regular updates to the media. It was obvious that Aguilar was being treated with more than kid glove sensitivity for someone who had allegedly committed such a gruesome crime. Even so, remembering what happened to Contemplacion, leftist and feminist groups, human rights activists and the media in Manila took the opportunity to denounce Singapore as a 'barbaric, tyrannical and totalitarian state with no respect for human rights'. Officials even invited coroner's examiners from the Philippines to perform a joint autopsy on the deceased, to avoid any possible accusations of a frame- up. Twelve hours after her arrest police seized a cleaver at the premises where she worked. Aguilar and La Puebla, both domestic helpers, had been neighbours and close friends, they discovered. Police also took possession of CCTV video footage showing the two women together shortly before her death. Forensic evidence also connected the dots. There was plenty of blood to work with.

Aguilar's two sons Mark, 7, and Edwin, 6, were at home in the Philippines. Their father Edwin, a farmhand, tried to explain what had happened. They had not seen their mother since August 2002 when she left to work as a maid in Singapore. They were hoping she would be home for Christmas - just as she had promised in her last text message just after 7 p.m. on Friday 9 September, the very night Singaporeans were learning of the gruesome killing on the television. The dead woman's husband and two sons Nueva Vizcaya, 9, and Clifford, 7, and were heartbroken. "They are inconsolable, they cannot come to grips with their loss', said her sister Julie Parangan at the time. 'It's so painful to hear that my sister has been killed like that and by her best friend', she said.

The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation was allowed to send pathologists, Cesar Bisquera and Raquel Fortun, to observe La Puebla's autopsy. Unlike the Philippines, the police in Singapore hold suspects without access to counsel while investigations are still underway. That also caused some consternation among legal advisers in Manila. They recalled what happened to Contemplacion; she was interrogated for days and quickly confessed to the crimes. Her own country folk knew little of her predicament and her embassy virtually ignored her. She was easy meat for the Lion City. But, more ominous for Aguilar, unlike Philippine law, the Singaporean justice system doesn't consider insanity as a ground for acquittal. Even though she was properly examined by psychiatrists who said she was mentally unbalanced at the time of the murders, she could still have received the death penalty. I found from my searches of court records that such cases are not unusual in Singapore. Whatever her mental condition, however, none of the families believed Aguilar could have committed such a gruesome crime and instead suspected La Puebla's Australian landlord and employer. Paulina Antonio, La Puebla's mother, revealed to a Manila reporter that she had received a phone call from this man before the murder was discovered. Antonio said: 'He told me he was very much worried about Jane's disappearance, but how come that, when Jane's body parts were found, he did not even call us for consolation or, at least, confirmation?'

'Jane's Australian boss called me Wednesday telling me that she went out Tuesday night and did not come home. He called me again last Thursday informing that Jane was still missing. And then another call came Friday informing me that the police were already notified of her disappearance', said Gerry Antonio, La Puebla's stepfather, who theorised that the landlord made the series of calls only to establish in any later investigation that he was looking for La Puebla on the first day she disappeared. He suspects that the landlord planted the alleged murder weapon, a cleaver, in Aguilar's house. Singapore newspapers published details such as Aguilar's bloody fingerprints supposedly found on the bags containing La Puebla's remains and of surveillance cameras showing the two maids together. Meanwhile, ordinary Filipinos had their own ideas: decapitating a woman's head and limbs and fitting them into plastic bags requires unflinching cold-bloodedness. Chopping with a meat cleaver through raw tendon, sinew and bone to severe a body of at least 100 pounds requires brute strength. Depositing these body parts in very public places also did not seem to be a very intelligent act, unless one purposefully wanted them to be found easily.

It is tempting for Filipinos to suppose that racist urbanites who often see them as a caste of servants would find them convenient scapegoats for crimes. After all, the typical Filipino asks, what is it about Singapore that drives people homicidal? Some 140,000 women work in Singapore as maids, mostly from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Activists contend that many more cases of abuse remain unreported, especially those of workers who enter Singapore illegally and who fear prosecution and jail, then deportation, if exposed. La Puebla's death was neither the first nor the most recent case of homicide or maid abuse in Singapore. The Contemplacion case not only exposed the perceived bias against domestic helpers but also the lack of concern and support the Philippine government had for these overseas workers. Haunted and shamed by that case, the Philippine government was quick to respond this time and
was generous in its support for both the La Puebla and Aguilar families. Miriam Cuasay, Manilas labour attache in Singapore, immediately assigned Maria Isleta as Aguilar s Philippine legal counsel. Labor Secretary Patricia Tomas promised to provide financial assistance to the family of the victim. Aguilar was a hard working wife who grew up as an orphan, the third among five siblings. She was in her second year studying Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Baguio when she went to work abroad.

Every observer of the case waited anxiously for the verdict of the court. It came on 29 May 2006. To everyone's relief she was jailed for 10 years having pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter. Reports said she narrowly escaped the gallows when the court reduced the charges from murder to manslaughter. Evidence was produced that she was mentally unsound and had killed La Puebla because of a money dispute. 'Her illness did not in any way dispossess her of that ability to distinguish between right and wrong', said High Court Judge V.K. Rajah. 'Upon taking all the relevant circumstances, I determine that the appropriate sentence for the accused is a term of imprisonment of 10 years'.

Aguilar, wearing an orange prison suit, was expressionless when the sentence was read out. Her husband Edwin and sister were in the court along with Philippine embassy officials. Even the mayor of her hometown arrived to give his support. 'We are happy with the sentencing', said her lawyer Sashi Nathan. 'Earlier there were some concerns that she might get a life sentence, so this is a huge relief for Guen'. It was also a huge relief for Singapore. Of course, they knew they could not hang her. Perhaps, though, Flor Contemplacion's death on the gallows was not entirely in vain. It served as a warning to Singapore and the cavalier way they impose the death penalty on oppressed, lowly people driven to madness by their own system.

Contemplacion's death on the gallows reminded me of the execution of another deranged young woman - Ruth Ellis - who shot her lover in a moment of madness. Her execution also ignited fierce opposition to the death penalty in Britain and it became one more nail in the coffin of capital punishment. Not long after capital punishment was abolished there for all time. After the Guen Aguilar's case was over, a Singapore lawyer told me: 'I am prepared to bet everything I own they will never hang another maid in this country again'. So maybe Flor Contemplacion's death has put an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty for maids in Singapore and her death on the gallows might not have been entirely in vain.

15

Licensed to Kill?

For several weeks in July 2004 - shortly before Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Van Tuongs appeal against the death penalty was about to be heard - dozens of people took to the streets of Jakarta to make vociferous, banner-waving protests outside the Singapore embassy. But this was not a prelude to the fight to save Nguyen from the hangman. They were members of the Working Forum on Justice and they were demanding the abolition of the death penalty for domestic helpers and other migrant workers in Singapore. 'We have also launched worldwide actions to take our protest to the International Labour Organisation', said Anis Hidayah, an activist of Migrant Care who coordinated the protest. The protesters also demanded that Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia ratify the international law to protect migrant workers' human rights. Many migrant workers face horrendous conditions all over the world but especially in such places as the Middle East and, more importantly at this time, Singapore.

There happened to be five Indonesian maids awaiting trial for the murders of their employers. Four of them faced the death penalty. The cases had highlighted the stressful conditions many of foreign domestic workers often at the hands of cruel, abusive employers who treat them like slaves. Many are forced to work 18-hour days without a single day off year in and year out. Such conditions were known to cause all kinds of distressing situations which led to violence and murder - of their own or their slave-driving, abusive employers. Like the Filipinas Flor Contemplacion and Guen Aguilar, the five young Indonesians, had cracked under the strain and had apparently gone mad committing
shocking, gruesome killings which stunned Singapore, especially its government. If they had to hang any of these women, some barely out of their teens, the uproar around the world, particularly in their homeland of Indonesia and the Philippines and Thailand - all vital economic partners in ASEAN - would be catastrophic. Everyone recalled the uproar and diplomatic and economic meltdown that occurred when Flor Contemplacion, a Filipina maid, was hanged in 1995. To many, Singapore's name still lives in ignominy as far as her execution was concerned.

As well as demanding the end of the death penalty for maids, the demonstrators in Jakarta also demanded the eradication of any form of physical, mental or sexual violation against domestic helpers and migrant workers, with hefty punishments for the perpetrators. "The crimes committed by migrant workers are a reaction to the accumulation of resentment against unjust and brutal treatment by their employers', said Anis Hidayah. "These issues must be taken into account', said Yanti Muchtar an official of the NGO Kapal Perempuan who also took part in the Jakarta demos. At another protest in front of the Singapore embassy a week later, they were received by the First Secretary. The ambassador could not see them because he was on leave, they were told. "The embassy official did speak to us', Anis said. During the meeting they explained they could not do anything to stop the death penalty in Singapore. It was a matter for the courts. The protesters, wearing black plastic sacks on their heads as a
symbol of people awaiting execution, declared they would continue to pursue efforts to have the death penalty scrapped in Singapore. One of the black banners they held up demanded 'Free Our Foreign Exchange-Earning Heroes' and another 'Stop Women and Child Trafficking'. The embassy official promised they would convey their demands to its government in Singapore. In April 2004 a delegation of Indonesian NGOs travelled to the United Nations Human Rights High Commission in Geneva to raise the issue of this threat of the death sentence.