NEVER GIVING UP | Celia and Cesar Veloso, along with supporters, air their appeal to visiting Indonesian President Joko Widodo on behalf of their jailed daughter, Mary Jane, in a demonstration at Mendiola near Malacañang on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. (Photo by NIÑO JESUS ORBETA / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — The parents of Mary Jane Veloso, an overseas Filipino worker who has been on death row in Indonesia for drug smuggling since 2010, have again raised their appeal to President Joko Widodo to grant her clemency before he steps down from office in October.
Celia, 63, Veloso’s mother, has been taking care of her daughter’s children — Mark Daniel, 21; and Mark Darren, 15 — and she is worried that no one will look after them when she’s gone since they have yet to receive any sign that their mother will be freed.
“It hurts to think about it, but when I’m gone who will take care of her children if Mary Jane is still not free then?” Celia said during a demonstration with their supporters at Mendiola on Wednesday, as Widodo met with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Malacañang.
The family visited Veloso in her detention center in Yogyakarta last month with the help of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta
Illegal recruitment case
“[My mother] talked to me and told me to do good in school. I was able to finish senior high school. I’m supposed to be in college now but I stopped [going to school],” Daniel said.
The family was hoping that Veloso would be granted clemency as a gift on her 39th birthday, which also fell on Jan. 10, the day Marcos and Widodo met in Malacañang.
Foreign Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro, in a statement issued late Wednesday, said the Veloso case was indeed raised during the bilateral meeting
“It was established during Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s official visit that the legal interrogatories required from the Philippine Regional Trial Court (RTC) on the case of Mary Jane Veloso have been sent to Jakarta for Ms Veloso to answer, as part of her testimony on the pending case that she filed against her illegal recruiters,” Lazaro said
She was referring to the illegal recruitment case against Veloso’s recruiters, Julius Lacanilao and Maria Cristina Sergio, that is pending before the RTC in Sto. Domingo, Nueva Ecija.
“President [Marcos] expressed hope that the progression of the case of Ms Veloso will merit her clemency at the appropriate time,” Lazaro added.
“We hope that before President Widodo of Indonesia is replaced, he gives clemency to my daughter so she can go home,” said Cesar, 67, Veloso’s father.
Celia and Cesar wrote separate letters addressed to Widodo and President Marcos, reiterating their plea. The letters were delivered by Katherine Panguban, head of legal services of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, the group representing Veloso, to Malacañang’s records office on Wednesday.
Veloso was convicted of smuggling drugs into Indonesia after 2.6 kilograms of heroin were found in her suitcase at Yogyakarta’s Adisucipto International Airport on April 25, 2010.
Veloso said she was unaware that she was carrying illegal drugs as the luggage was given to her by Lacanilao and Sergio.
A Yogyakarta court sentenced her to death by firing squad about six months after her arrest, but she was granted a stay of execution in April 2015 during the administration of then-President Benigno Aquino III.