When Filipina maid Guen Aguilar appeared in court on 15 September 2005 charged with one of the most gruesome murders in Singapore history, the diplomatic turn-out from her country's embassy astounded everyone. The ambassador, Belen Anota, flanked by top diplomatic officials and prominent members of the Filipino community filed into the courtroom. Other Filipinos, mostly young domestic workers and labourers packed the public gallery and stood in groups around the courthouse. Two of Manila's biggest television stations sent camera crews and another dozen print writers and photographers arrived to cover the proceedings. Their numbers were swelled by international wire services including AFP, AP, Reuters and representatives from the local media such as The Straits Times, Today and The New Paper.
Guen Aguilar was facing death by hanging for the murder of her close friend Jane La Puebla, a fellow maid from her home town. But in Manila and across the Filipino diaspora her execution would be regarded almost as an act of war. Her seemingly inevitable ghastly end had all the makings of yet another 'trial of the century' in her country and it sent shock waves through Singapore's corridors of power and fury in the Philippines. It was a particularly ominous sign, and with good cause. Although it was almost ten years since another Filipina maid had been found guilty of two murders and hanged, everyone remembers the name: Flor Contemplacion. Her execution sparked political upheaval in the Philippines and a bitter diplomatic row resulting in a huge backlash against Singapore which still resonates to this day. Even when the atmosphere thawed things were never quite
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the same again. Despite the ghastliness of Jane La Puebla's murder, the immediate message from Manila was clear. When Guen Aguila, a 29 year-old mother of two, appeared in court to be formally charged a huge crowd waving placards was already demonstrating outside the Singapore embassy in Manila demanding that this time a fair trial would be held for their fellow citizen. It was an early warning signal to Singapore. The atmosphere was getting tense again.
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
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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, t he 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.
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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-
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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'.
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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.