A man, who has name suppression, was convicted of Gotingco's rape and murder at the High Court in Auckland on Friday.

Gotingco went missing on a Saturday night in 2014 after catching a bus to her Birkdale home from her work in Auckland's city centre. Her body was found several days later at Eskdale Cemetery.

Gotingco family spokeswoman Ruth Money said the family was "celebrating Blessie's life as their faith allows."

"They're a very strong faith-based family and they have a very strong Filipino community around them, so they have New Zealand-based family as well as the international family who have arrived to support them through the trial, so there will be traditional Filipino and faith-based celebrations of her life and for her."

Blessie's husband Antonio Gotingco has spoken before about the family's strong Catholic faith.

Last year he said he believed everything happened for a reason, and that his wife's death was "an instrument to awaken the whole country that the environment is changing and that we need to start making an effort to protect our neighbours."

He acknowledged that faith in his only public words since the trial.

"May the grace of the Lord be with you all," he told media gathered outside Auckland's High Court on Friday.

After the trial, Money said the family were "extremely relieved" the trial was over.

"We wish to remember her for who she was rather than the evil that happened," she said.

"Her smile would light up your heart and will continue to do so."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• m.nzherald.co.nz
• Image: odt.co.nz

The girl will graduate but has been told she cannot join her classmates in the ceremonies. Reports say school policies allegedly violated involve immorality, exposure online and smoking and drinking.

Winton's St Thomas Aquinas School principal Julian Ineson said 17 of its 79 pupils (22 per cent) were from the Philippines, owing largely to the dairy farming boom in the area that brings Filipino families to Southland to work.

He said some of the Filipino children had a limited knowledge of English, and he wants more direction from the Education Ministry on how best to teach them.

Yesterday tourists flocked to see at least 24 Filipinos take part in the annual ritual which Church leaders reject as extreme devotion and a distortion of the Easter message.

"The Church asks you to deny yourself through mortification, prayer and sacrifice. So it is more of self-control rather than physical infliction on our body," Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto told The Philippine Star. "The Church does not ask you to punish yourself corporally."

However more than 30,000 people, including tourists watched and took pictures. An ambulance stood by and more than 20 tourists fainted or became dizzy in the heat, officials said.

Ruben Enaje, a 50-year-old sign painter, screamed in pain as villagers dressed as Roman centurions hammered four-inch stainless steel nails through his palms and set him aloft on a cross under a brutal sun in San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga.

It was Enaje's 25th crucifixion after surviving, almost unscathed, a fall from a three-story building in 1985.

"I hope the Lord will grant my wish to make me win big in the lottery this year" Alex Laranang, a 55-year-old food vendor who said he can't read or write, told Reuters before two 5-inch nails were driven into his hands on a scorching hot day.

Laranang, a father of five, said he had won 3 thousand pesos (NZ$87) twice in the five years he had himself crucified on a cross.

"The first time I was nailed to a cross, I was terrified, but I prayed to Jesus to take the pain. Now, I don't feel anything. It's like getting an injection," he added.

Ahead of the cross nailings, throngs of penitents walked several miles through village streets and beat their bare backs with sharp bamboo sticks and pieces of wood, sometimes splashing spectators with blood. Some participants opened cuts in the penitents' backs using broken glass to ensure the ritual was sufficiently bloody.

Foreigners have been banned from taking part after an Australian comic was nailed to a cross under a false name a few years ago. Authorities also believe that a Japanese man sought to be crucified as part of a porn film in 1996. "They made a mockery of a local tradition," the authorities said.

Sources

• Reuters
• The Guardian