`You Put Your Fate In God's Hands'

I was in Singapore the day they hanged Flor Contemplacion. The Philippine domestic helper went to the gallows at Changi Prison for the murder of another Philippine housekeeper and a 4-year-old boy in the other woman's care. I was more focused on my 10-year-old son's gymnastics competition, my reason for going to Singapore. Local newspapers buried the story, so it wasn't until I returned to Hong Kong that the full impact of the case hit me.

Flor Contemplacion was the talk of Hong Kong's Philippine community. There are as many as 139,000 overseas contract workers (OCWs) from the Philippines here, almost all working as live-in servants. My housekeeper, Eufrosina "Inday" Baldivia, who doesn't usually keep up with current events, was as familiar with the details of the Contemplacion case as Americans are with the O.J. Simpson trial. In Manila Mail, a tabloid for overseas Filipinos, the headline screamed "Paalam [Good-bye] Flor," and the maids were full of outrage--both at the Singapore authorities for not granting a stay of execution to examine new evidence and at their own government for not protecting Contemplacion.