YOUNG Mary Jane Veloso’s legal troubles started when she dreamt of working abroad to earn better wages. Naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world, Veloso became a victim of illegal recruitment just like many other Filipinos desiring to work abroad.
Official appreciation of her case by Philippine officials, including President Bongbong Marcos, showed that Veloso became a victim twice over. Her alleged recruiters turned her into an unwitting drug mule. Court records say the recruiters asked Veloso to fly to the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta from Manila to hand a suitcase to a man. She was arrested after authorities there discovered heroin wrapped in foil hidden in the lining of her luggage.
It was just Mary Jane’s bad luck that she was in Indonesia, a country with very harsh anti-illegal drugs laws and has no qualms in implementing the death penalty for such crimes. Marcos said while Veloso was held accountable under Indonesian law, she remains a victim of her circumstances. Veloso had always maintained her innocence.
‘We credit President Bongbong Marcos for this intense and likely successful work in diplomacy, and hope that Mary Jane will finally be home, even if still a person deprived of liberty.’
Veloso is currently detained at the Yogyakarta Women’s Penitentiary in Jakarta. Meanwhile, charges of human trafficking and large-scale illegal recruitment have been filed against Veloso’s alleged traffickers Julius Lacanilao and Cristina Sergio in a Nueva Ecija court, which resulted in a guilty verdict on the illegal recruitment case in 2020. The trafficking case is still pending and Veloso is a witness in the case.
Just like the President, we commiserate with Mary Jane for her decade-old ordeal which started with her arrest in Yogyakarta for drug trafficking charges in 2010 after 2.6 kilograms of heroin were found in her suitcase.
Veloso was spared from the firing squad at the last minute in 2015, after Philippine officials asked Joko Widodo, then Indonesia’s president, to let her testify against members of a human- and drug-smuggling ring. As it is, Indonesian officials have shown some consideration for Veloso, as they have already executed several foreign nationals, including two Australians, who were leaders of the Bali Nine trafficking ring, in 2015.
Mary Jane’s situation lately had a glimmer of hope when President Marcos followed up the case with newly elected Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and happily declared that the overseas worker will soon return to Manila following an arrangement reached between the two countries.
“Mary Jane Veloso is coming home. After over a decade of diplomacy and consultations with the Indonesian government, we managed to delay her execution long enough to reach an agreement to finally bring her back to the Philippines,” Marcos said.
Prabowo’s office said Veloso would serve the rest of her sentence in the Philippines, citing diplomacy and reciprocal partnership in law enforcement as the reason for her transfer.
The Indonesian Coordinating Ministry for Legal, Human Rights, Immigration, and Correction said Coordinating Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra estimates that the “transfer process” for Mary Jane will take place next month, but still the details are being ironed out with the Indonesian Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office.
We credit President Bongbong Marcos for this intense and likely successful work in diplomacy, and hope that Mary Jane will finally be home, even if still a person deprived of liberty.
