MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is open to granting clemency to Filipina death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso once she returns to the Philippines.
“We will see. Hindi pa maliwanag kung ano ba talaga (It’s not clear as to what it really is). This is the first time this has happened. So, everything is on the table,” Marcos said in an ambush interview in Nueva Ecija when asked about the possible clemency for Veloso.
Marcos said the Philippine government has been working on Veloso’s case for years, noting that her sentence has been commuted from death to life imprisonment.
“As I said, we have been working on this, all the previous presidents, not only me… It’s been 10 years. What we have done is we were able to have her sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment,” Marcos said.
“Then what followed was that we were able to send her home. We will have to decide what will happen next,” he added.
On Wednesday, Marcos announced that Veloso was “coming home” after Indonesia agreed to the request to transfer her to the Philippines.
The now 39-year-old mother of two was arrested and sentenced to death in Indonesia in 2010 for drug trafficking.
She made headlines in 2015 when she was given a last minute reprieve from execution following a personal appeal by the late former president Benigno Aquino 3rd to the Indonesian government.
Details of Veloso’s return to the Philippines were still being finalized, but Philippine authorities hope that she may be able to go home in time for Christmas.
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