Harsh penalty for Mary Jane: She did not get a fair trial

AT GROUND LEVEL

- Satur C. Ocampo

Upon being returned to the Philippines last Wednesday for custody at the Correctional Institute for Women (CIW), Mary Jane Veloso pleaded to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to grant her clemency from the unjust death penalty, reduced to life imprisonment, meted by an Indonesian court for drug trafficking.

Her family in Nueva Ecija, her lawyer Edre Olalia, religious groups and various progressive people's organizations have sustained the call for clemency over the years.

Sentenced to death in 2010 for drug trafficking, Mary Jane was spared from execution by firing squad in April 2015 and given a temporary reprieve. It was former president Benigno Aquino III who successfully persuaded the Indonesian government to do so.

In 2022, President Marcos Jr. went a step further and appealed to the Indonesian government to grant clemency to the hapless woman. Then last month he announced that Indonesia had reduced her death sentence to life imprisonment, who by then had served 14 years in an Indonesian prison. He attributed the Indonesian gesture to the "good relations" between the two governments.

But last Thursday, he appeared to hedge, cautious in his reply when asked by reporters about the prospect of his administration's granting of clemency.

"We are still far from that," he said. "We still have to look at what (her status really) is. And then, of course, we're aware of the request for clemency from her representative and of course her family."

His administration, he added, "will leave it to the judgment of our legal experts to determine whether the provision of clemency is appropriate." However, he pointed out, "Indonesia did not set conditions so it's really up to us."