MANILA – President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said the government still needs to study calls on granting clemency to Mary Jane Veloso, who is in death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking.
According to the Chief Executive, this is the first time that a Filipina worker on death row abroad would be sent back to the Philippines so they still have to decide on what will happen to Veloso next.
“We will see. Hindi pa maliwanag kung ano ba talaga… This is the first time that this has happened. So everything is on the table,” Marcos said in an interview in Nueva Ecija on Thursday.
“We have been working on this, all the previous Presidents, hindi lang ako. Ten years na ito. Pero ang nagawa natin napa-commute natin ang sentensya nya from death sentence to life imprisonment,” Marcos Jr. said.
The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega, for his part, stated that the government’s next move is really for Veloso’s possible clemency.
“The aim of the government would be not just for her to be transferred but for the president, our president, to be able to issue clemency,” De Vega said.
Veloso, 39, was arrested in 2010 after arriving in Indonesia with 2.6 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. She has consistently maintained her innocence, claiming she was duped by recruiters who exploited her desperation to escape poverty.
Her 2015 execution was postponed after a groundswell of international advocacy and intervention by the Philippine government./PN
