Metro Manila, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will study appeals seeking executive clemency for Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina trafficking victim who was spared execution in Indonesia and transferred to Philippine custody last year, Malacañang said Tuesday, Feb. 10.
Palace press officer Claire Castro said the Office of the Executive Secretary is reviewing the case, including the minutes of recent meetings between Philippine and Indonesian officials.
“Kanina lang po ay nakausap po natin mismo ang sa OES at sinasabi po nila na aaralin po kung ano pa iyong mga probisyon at kung ano ba iyong minutes of the meeting nila sa bansang Indonesia at prerogative pa rin po ng pangulo ang masusunod,” Castro said.
[Translation: “We spoke earlier with the Office of the Executive Secretary, which said it will study the applicable provisions and review the minutes of their meeting with Indonesia. Ultimately, it is still the president’s prerogative.]
Asked on legal obstacles preventing the president from granting clemency, Castro said the matter is still under review.
“As I said, they will study the latest minutes of the meeting with Indonesia and see whether there would be any violation of the law. Again, whatever will be granted remains the prerogative of the president,” she said.
Veloso was convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia in 2010. She narrowly escaped execution in 2015 after Philippine authorities intervened, saying she was a victim of human trafficking. In 2024, she was transferred from death row in Indonesia to the Philippines and has been detained at the Correctional Institute for Women, where she has spent a year.
On Jan. 28, Veloso released an open letter from prison thanking supporters and appealing for continued help in her campaign for freedom. She described the hardship faced by her family since her return, particularly her elderly parents who travel long hours from Nueva Ecija to visit her.
“I want you to know how difficult it has been for me to see my parents who are already of old age, traveling all the way from Nueva Ecija, for eight to 10 hours just to visit me,” Veloso wrote. “They put aside their own health conditions and their old age to ease their longing for me.”
Veloso maintained she committed no wrongdoing, either abroad or in the Philippines, and expressed gratitude to supporters who campaigned for her reprieve from execution in 2015 and her return home last year. She appealed for continued advocacy so she could be reunited with her family.
“I hope to be given the opportunity to take care of my parents while they are still alive and especially my children, whom I did not have the chance to watch grow up. I want to make them feel that they have a mother who loves them very much,” she wrote.
