MANILA, Philippines – After 14 long years of imprisonment in a foreign country where she only wished to provide for her family, Mary Jane Veloso, Indonesia’s only Filipino on death row, returned to the Philippines in the early morning of Wednesday, December 18.
Veloso returned aboard a commercial flight which left Jakarta past midnight on Wednesday, and arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City shortly before 6 am. Philippine corrections officials including Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. flew to Jakarta to accompany her.
Though the Department of Justice did not allow Veloso’s family to greet her at the airport gate, they still showed up at the terminal’s arrivals area together with other relatives, private lawyers, and supporters. The media was also not permitted to cover her arrival at the gate.
When Veloso stepped on Philippine soil, her life was officially spared, since there is no death penalty in the country. However, she will not be free to go home just yet.
Veloso will be detained at the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong City for at least the next two months.
Veloso’s family told Rappler that they will be allowed to spend a few hours with her at the CIW on Wednesday.
The BuCor earlier said Veloso will undergo a five-day quarantine as part of standard procedure for newly committed persons deprived of liberty (PDLs). Here, she will be medically assessed, and after the five days, her family will be able to visit her on Christmas Eve, December 24.
Also after the quarantine, she will undergo a 55-day orientation on PDL rules and rights, diagnostic evaluation, and initial security classification, after which she will be transferred to her assigned corrections facility.
Veloso left the Philippines in 2010 hoping to find work abroad to provide a better life for her two children. She jumped at an opportunity given to her by a neighbor, Cristina Sergio, to work in Malaysia, but was diverted to Yogyakarta with a new suitcase given to her by her recruiters. There, airport security found that the suitcase concealed a stash of heroin, which Veloso unwittingly brought with her.
Veloso was sentenced to death for drug trafficking just months later. But she has always maintained her innocence, claiming that her recruiters duped her into becoming their drug mule.
Her execution was scheduled in 2015. A campaign to spare her life drew support from around the world, and the late former president Benigno Aquino III broke protocol at the last minute to ask then-Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi to turn her into a state witness. He said Veloso could help Indonesia pin down a drug trafficking syndicate.
Veloso’s recruiters, Sergio and her partner Julius Lacanilao, have since been found guilty in an illegal recruitment case distinct from hers. Veloso’s own case against them remains ongoing in a Nueva Ecija court, where she has yet to testify.
After years of her case stalling, Veloso finally received a breakthrough when Indonesia, with new leadership under Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, entered into an agreement to transfer her to the Philippines.
Indonesia has given Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the discretion to grant Veloso clemency, which her family and supporters have long appealed for. – Rappler.com