FORMER death row convict Mary Jane Veloso, who was detained in Indonesia for nearly 15 years in Indonesia for drug trafficking charges, will soon be free after President Ferdinand Marcos granted her an absolute pardon.
The chief executive made the announcement when asked if he had already issued the pardon after inspecting the Felipe Abrigo Memorial Hospital in Eastern Samar on Friday.
‘Pinirmahan ko na….Pinirmahan ko na ‘yung pardon (I’ve already signed it…I’ve already signed the pardon),’ Marcos told reporters.
Veloso was arrested by authorities at an Indonesian airport in 2010 after 2.6 kilograms of heroin wwere found in her luggage.
The former overseas Filipino worker (OFW) claimed her employer tricked her to carry the suitcase, without her knowledge that it had a secret compartment hiding the drugs.
She was able to get a last-minute reprieve in her death sentence in 2015 amid frenzied interventions by the Philippine government under President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, with the call to stop execution coming just minutes before midnight.
After the Indonesian government approved the request of the Philippines government to allow Veloso to serve her prison sentence in the Philippines in 2024, she was transferred to the Correction Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City.
Last February, the family of Veloso submitted a letter to the Palace urging Marcos to grant her clemency.
The Office of the Executive Secretary conducted a review of the possible legal impediments on the request.
Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto said Veloso’s pardon was the result of all of the diplomatic efforts of the government in over a decade.
‘Today, those efforts culminate in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s grant of an absolute pardon,’ Recto said in a statement.
He said he hopes the pardon will allow Veloso to spend time with her family.
‘We cannot give Mary Jane back the 16 years she spent away from her family. But today, perhaps, we can give her back the future,’ Recto said.
In a statement, Migrante International welcomed the announced granting of pardon to Veloso, which it said was the result of her family and stakeholder’s relentless campaign to secure her freedom.
‘We celebrate this as a historic victory for the global people’s movement that has long fought for freedom and justice for Mary Jane as a victim of human trafficking,’ Migrante International said in a statement.
However, it noted that the Marcos administration committed injustice for ‘prolonging her detention.’
‘Mary Jane’s freedom is long overdue. While he ultimately heeded the relentless call of the people to free Mary Jane, let us not forget that Marcos has committed a grave injustice by prolonging her detention in Philippine prison for one year and nine months, when no charges have been brought against her in Philippine courts,’ it said.