MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Friday that he had pardoned Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina who spent nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row for drug trafficking before being sent home.
Veloso, 40, is expected to be freed following the pardon as there are no other active cases against her, although Marcos did not specify when this would happen.
The mother of two was arrested and sentenced to death by an Indonesian court in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to contain 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin.
Nine years after she narrowly escaped execution, Jakarta handed her over to Manila in 2024 under a “practical arrangement” for her repatriation, allowing her to serve the remainder of her sentence in a Philippine prison.
“I’ll give you a scoop: I signed her pardon yesterday,” Marcos told reporters during a visit to the northern town of Batac on Friday.
His spokeswoman earlier said that Marcos was seriously considering an absolute pardon for Veloso.
Veloso’s lawyer relayed the news to her family, her mother Celia Veloso told AFP by phone from their northern Philippine hometown.
“They were so happy,” she said of Mary Jane’s two sons.
“‘We will finally be able to be with mama,’ that’s what they told me.”
The case of the Filipina, who had travelled to Indonesia to seek work as a maid, sparked an uproar in the Philippines, where millions of people seek better-paying work abroad.
Both she and her supporters claim she was duped by an international drug syndicate.
In 2015, Indonesia spared her from execution after Philippine authorities arrested her suspected recruiter.
