PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is “seriously considering” an absolute pardon for Mary Jane Veloso, the former migrant worker who has spent nearly 17 years in prison and was on the brink of being executed in Indonesia for drug trafficking.
During a House budget hearing on the Office of the President earlier this week, Bataan Rep. Albert Garcia said Veloso may be pardoned “on humanitarian grounds in support of the government’s commitment to protecting Filipino migrant workers.”
Malacañang spokesman Claire Castro refused to confirm or deny Garcia’s announcement, and would rather wait for the final word from the president.
Veloso’s case spans almost two decades which saw Manila and Jakarta figure in a legal and diplomatic tug-of-war.
Trying to escape a hardscrabble life in Nueva Ecija, Veloso was barely out of her teens when she was hired as a domestic helper in Dubai. After just 10 months, she was forced to return to the Philippines after her employer’s cook tried to rape her.
Desperate to support her two daughters, Veloso readily accepted an offer from two neighbors to work as a domestic helper in Malaysia. Her decision would change her life.
She was already in Malaysia when one of the neighbors who accompanied her announced a change of plan: She was to fly to Indonesia instead, where a new job awaited her. The neighbor handed her a suitcase which, unknown to Veloso, had 2.6 kilograms of heroin stashed in its lining.
The heroin was detected at Yogyakarta airport, and Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010. Six months later, a court sentenced her to death by firing squad.
From the start, Filipino officials were slow to provide proper legal aid to Veloso. Interrogators questioned her in Bahasa Indonesia, a language she did not understand. Unable to afford counsel, Veloso was represented at the trial by a state-appointed lawyer with little experience in capital cases. The court-designated interpreter, meanwhile, translated the proceedings from Bahasa into English, which Veloso was not proficient in.
Her execution was set for April 29, 2015, and her case triggered a wave of global protest.
UN Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns appealed to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to stay the execution of Veloso and several other death row inmates, arguing they were victims of unfair trials.
Over 200,000 people from 127 countries signed a petition to spare her life.
Despite the evidence presented in Philippine courts that Veloso didn’t know she was being used as a “mule” to smuggle in drugs, “prominent antidrug campaigns in both Indonesia and the Philippines” blocked her release, the Cornell Law School noted in an online profile of the Veloso case.
The presidents of both countries at the time, Widodo and Rodrigo Duterte, “came to power on the back of promises to come down hard on the drug trade, and both have made punitive drug policies as a hallmark of their political tenure,” Cornell Law School said.
Then came a breakthrough. Just hours before the execution, one of Veloso’s neighbors surrendered to police in the Philippines. Then-president Benigno Aquino III explained to Widodo that Veloso’s testimony was needed to buttress the illegal recruitment case against her neighbor. That gave the Indonesian leader the excuse to grant Veloso a last-minute reprieve.
The Filipino’s ordeal, however, was far from over. Repatriating her so she could serve out the rest of her sentence in a Philippine prison was a process that took years.
Prolonged diplomatic negotiations between Manila and Jakarta culminated in a prisoner exchange agreement. On Dec. 18, 2024, Veloso was flown home.
She’s now 41 years old, and is detained at the Correctional Institution for Women. She has been requesting for an absolute pardon, but early this year, the Department of Justice pointed to “legal nuances” in her case that needed to be resolved first.
President Marcos has said that Veloso’s story “resonates with many: a mother trapped by the grip of poverty, who made one desperate choice that altered the course of her life.”
He also assured overseas Filipino workers and their families that his administration would exert all measures to protect their welfare and improve their well-being.
Mr. President, it’s time to end Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal.
