The overseas Filipino worker who was sentenced to death and later acquitted for killing her employer in United Arab Emirates in 2015 finally returned home Friday.
Jennifer Dalquez, a native of General Santos City, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Friday morning on board Philippine Airlines flight PR-657 from Abu Dhabi.
READ: OFW spared from death row in UAE; home soon
Dalquez reunited with her parents Rajima Hamid and Abdul Hamid who were escorted by personnel from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
She expressed her gratitude to the government, especially to President Rodrigo Duterte for her release from jail.
Dalquez killed her employer in self-defense when he tried to rape her in December 2014.
Reports said the Court of First Instance heard her case in March 2015.
The Philippine Embassy in UAE appealed her conviction and successfully had it overturned by a local court in 2017.
DFA Undersecretary for Office of Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola said the department has exhausted all legal remedies to see to it that Dalquez would be able to return home and be reunited with her loved ones.
Arriola said Dalquez received assistance from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and financial assistance from the DFA, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and the Department of Labor and Employment, and got a scholarship for her child as well.
Dalquez and her parents will briefly stay at OWWA headquarters in Pasay City before flying to her hometown in General Santos City.