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Michael Lopez, 26, could barely hold his tears when the wooden box containing the remains of his sister, Crisanta Mahusay Lopez, was opened at a funeral parlor. He last saw her three years ago, dressed in regal white at the Immaculate Concepcion Metropolitan Cathedral in Roxas City, Capiz where she exchanged vows with her Japanese husband, Masayoshi Nagano.

But now, the bruises on his sister’s face erased any memory of her once cheerful glow.

Crisanta and her seven-month-old son Naomasa were killed on March 17 by her husband, Masayoshi, in their apartment at Higashikurume district in Tokyo.

Japanese police said the 43-year-old Seibu Bus Co driver stabbed his 33-year-old wife and choked his son to death over depression and lack of sleep from the baby’s incessant crying.

Lopez is just one of the many Filipinas in Japan who suffered death and abuse this year. Among the highly-publicized cases of Filipinas in the Land of the Rising Sun is the hotel worker who was raped by a US soldier in Okinawa and the 22-year-old Filipina waitress, Honiefaith Ratilla Kamiosawa who was brutally killed by her alleged lover.

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