THE body of Jeanelyn Villavende, who was killed in Kuwait allegedly by her employers, is set to arrive today in Manila, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said yesterday.
The remains will be flown to her home in Mindanao on Thursday.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs and OWWA (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration) Administrator Hans Cacdac might go to the airport for her,” said Bello.
“I am going to General Santos City on Friday. I will visit her there,” he added.
Villavende’s family met yesterday with Bello and Cacdac at the DOLE office in Manila.
An embalmment report of the Sabah Hospital in Kuwait, which was released by Bello, said Villavende’s death was caused by “acute failure of heart and respiration as result by shock and multiple injuries (in the) vascular nervous system.”
Bello said he has requested the NBI to conduct another autopsy to validate results of an autopsy done in Kuwait.
“For our own satisfaction, especially the President, we want a validation from our own NBI,” he said
The killing of Villavende prompted the DOLE to impose a partial ban on deployment to Kuwait, covering all newly-hired household service workers. The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said government should impose a total deployment ban.
TUCP vice president Louie Corral said numerous incidents that have taken place in Kuwait involving Filipino household workers despite an 2018 agreement between the two countries for the protection of domestic workers.
He said 200 Filipino household workers have died in Kuwait in the last four years, and there are 280 runaway Filipino workers in the Philippine embassy shelter there.
