Manny Pacquiao. AFP FILE PHOTO
A month after making a personal visit to death row convict Mary Jane Veloso in Indonesia, Saranggani Rep. Manny Pacquiao is asking the House committee on overseas workers affairs to catalog all legal cases involving Filipino overseas workers to ensure that they get full government support before it’s too late.
Pacquiao said that one of the key information he obtained during his visit to Veloso at the Wirogunan Prison Facility in Yogyakarta on July 10 was that the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta offered to help her with a private counsel only on Oct. 21, 2010, or one week after the court sentenced Veloso to death and six months after she was arrested.
In a letter to committee chair and Agap party-list Rep. Nicanor M. Briones, Pacquiao said the committee should immediately gather all relevant agencies in a hearing in order to make a full inventory of OFW cases, especially those who are in detention, as of June 30 this year.
Pacquiao believes that had the government acted in a timely manner to help Veloso and other accused OFWs, they could have had a better chance at winning their cases or at least getting a lighter penalty.
“I am informed that Ms. Veloso’s story is not isolated and has evolved to be a very disturbing pattern. If we can save other apprehended OFWs from suffering the same fate as Ms. Mary Jane Veloso, we would have truly fulfilled the mandate of our committee, as well as our bounden duty as representatives of our people,” said Pacquiao, who is the committee’s vice chair.
Pacquiao said the committee should also look into the status of the P100-million OFW support fund allocated to the Department of Foreign Affairs in the 2015 national budget which was reportedly vetoed by President Aquino.–Gil Cabacungan