Balabagan never revealed the identity of the child’s father-until this week. Shortly after her release, Balabagan embarked on a career as a singer, but soon became pregnant after a brief affair. The campaign to save Balabagan, which included the payment of blood money to the relatives of the victim, eventually succeeded, and in her third trial, the sentence was reduced to a year’s imprisonment and 100 strokes of the cane.
The verdict triggered an international outcry and a defense campaign in several countries, as her case came to symbolize the ill treatment of domestic servants in Arab states-and came just a few months after another Filipino domestic worker, Flor Contemplacion, was hanged in Singapore after being convicted of murder. In 1995, an Islamic court sentenced a Filipino woman, Sarah Balabagan, to death by firing squad for killing her employer in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who had tried to rape her. "The revelation that an established journalist had taken advantage of a vulnerable 17-year-old would be a news story worthy of public discussion."
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