The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it continues to work hard to prevent the execution of Filipinos on death row worldwide. DFA’s pledge was motivated by the decreasing number of overseas Filipinos that are facing the death penalty. In a data sheet provided by the agency on Wednesday, there are now only 81 Filipinos on death row, which is down by two from the 83 reported earlier in March. Among the notable cases that DFA worked on was the overturning of the death sentence of two Filipinos in Saudi Arabia for alleged illicit affair. Their punishment was reduced to just nine years of imprisonment due to the “timely intervention” of a legal retainer hired by the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh. Other cases were the acquittal of Rose Policarpio and Jennifer Dalguez, who had faced murder charges. They were both eventually repatriated. Meanwhile, DFA also reported the 135 acquittals that were secured through the agency’s Legal Assistance Fund for 2022. This, according to DFA, is contrary to some media reports that it had not obtained any acquittal of cases involving Filipinos in the said year. Also, most of the acquittals involved retaliatory cases filed against household service workers (HSWs) in the Middle East for theft, absconding, and breach of trust, the agency said. “The 2022 figures should be appreciated vis a vis the fact that, for the first half of 2022, most countries in Asia and the Middle East were still practicing strict COVID-19 control protocols,” it said. “Therefore, courts generally remained closed, and there was thus a general slowdown in the resolution of cases. Face-to-face trials were likewise cancelled, and few of the Asian and Middle East countries practiced trials via teleconferencing, greatly hampering case movement,” it added. While for immorality cases, such as giving birth out of wedlock, there will really be no acquittal due to different cultural milieu of some countries, DFA said. The agency also reported those who were pardoned. It said between 2018 to 2022, 354 Filipinos were given parole.