Duterte to ask Widodo to spare Mary Jane Veloso but…

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that he would try to negotiate to spare the life of Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, but said he was willing to accept Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s decision.

“I will ask Widodo in a very respectful and courteous way. If my pleadings will fall on deaf ears, I am ready to accept it, for the simple reason I do not doubt the judicial system of Indonesia. I have been there once upon a time and I was able to observe how it works. ….I might just accept the system and plead for mercy if President Widodo will deny it, I will be grateful that she has been treated very well,” Duterte said in a press briefing before flying to Laos for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit.

Duterte said he would meet Widodo in Indonesia after the summit for bilateral talks.

Veloso was sentenced to death by an Indonesian court for trafficking illegal drugs in 2010. She was supposed to be executed last year but was given temporary reprieve on April 29, minutes away from being executed following international clamor to spare her life and after her recruiter surrendered to authorities in Manila.

Veloso was excluded from the third round of executions as Indonesian Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said they respect the legal process taking place in the Philippines.

Veloso will testify against her recruiter Maria Cristina Sergio in the human trafficking complaint she filed in the Department of Justice. Sergio and her live-in partner Julius Lacanilao are also facing large-scale illegal recruitment and estafa./rga