Mary Jane Veloso excited to wear her funeral dress for Mother’s Day
Lost in translation
The moments just before the execution were so depressing, but not without humor for Laurente, particularly when an Indonesian official could not communicate to her Mary Jane’s reprieve.
“Before the shots were fired, one Indonesian official started speaking to me in Bahasa. I told him I could not understand,” Laurente said.
The Indonesian official who was lost in translation simply told her to “Be strong.”
From the island’s wharf where families of the death row inmates were gathered under a tent embellished with flowers and an abundance of food, Laurente heard a burst of gunfire.
She wailed and shouted, “Bunso, Mary Jane!” She was inconsolable for 25 minutes until she found out that Mary Jane was not among those executed from the TV news reports.
“I realized that was what the Indonesian official was trying to tell me,” Laurente said.
Not over yet
While the Veloso family felt happy that Mary Jane was saved from execution and was now able to sleep at night, anything could still happen, Laurente said.
But Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers and one of the private counsels of Mary Jane, said the case against Mary Jane’s recruiter, Sergio, was strong.
“The mere fact that the Indonesian government took a second look is something extraordinary. It is incumbent for [Philippine] authorities to not let this chance go to waste,” Olalia said.
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