DFA Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega speaks to the media after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announces that Mary Jane Veloso will soon return home
MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) held on Wednesday, November 20, a press briefing shortly after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced in a statement that an overseas Filipino worker who has been in Indonesian death row for over 14 years, will be coming home.
Mary Jane Veloso, now 39, was arrested, tried, and convicted for trying to bring in 2.6 kilograms of heroin into Yogyagarta in 2010. She made headlines in 2015 after then-Indonesian president Joko Widodo rejected a batch of clemency appeals that included Veloso’s.
Hours before her scheduled execution via firing squad, then-Philippine president Benigno Aquino III called Indonesia’s foreign minister with an appeal to turn Veloso into state witness who could testify on a larger drug trafficking syndicate. Her execution was postponed. Since then, negotiations to find a “favorable formula” for Veloso did not cease.
Watch the briefing with the DFA Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega on this page. – Rappler.com
