Marcos grants Mary Jane Veloso absolute pardon

Mary Jane Veloso arrives at the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong City on December 18, 2024. Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News/File

MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has granted absolute pardon to Mary Jane Veloso, who spent nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row before being sent back to the Philippines in 2024. 

“Pinirmahan ko na yung pardon niya kahapon,” Marcos said in a chance interview in Guiuan, Eastern Samar.

After her scheduled 2015 execution by firing squad was stayed at the last minute, Veloso became a poster child for some 10 million overseas Filipino workers, many of whom take jobs as domestic workers abroad to escape poverty at home.

The reprieve was granted after a woman suspected of recruiting her was arrested on human trafficking charges and Veloso was named as a prosecution witness.

In December 2024, the mother of two was transferred to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong under the terms of a transfer agreement with Indonesia that removed the possibility of execution.

Under the agreement, Veloso’s life sentence falls under the Philippines’ purview, “including the authority to grant clemency, remission, amnesty and similar measures”.

The Veloso deal includes a “reciprocity” provision. “If Indonesia requests similar assistance in the future, the Philippines shall fulfill such a request,” the agreement states.

Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past, but President Prabowo Subianto has agreed to fulfil some requests to hand back prisoners.