TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo or Jokowi's visit to the Philippines was greeted with an appeal from the family of death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso. The demonstration took place at the Mendiola Bridge in Manila on Wednesday, January 10, 2024.

Mary Jane is a Filipino citizen arrested in Indonesia for drug trafficking in 2010 and then sentenced to death. Granted a temporary reprieve in 2015, she is still on death row and has been imprisoned for 14 years.

Mary Jane parents, Celia and Cesar Veloso, and their two other children begged President Joko Widodo and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for Mary Jane to be released.

"We are appealing to President Marcos to discuss our daughter's case with Widodo. We believe he can do something about Mary Jane's case," the mother said.

Celia wrote a letter addressed to Jokowi, which was hand-delivered to the palace by a lawyer representing the family. "I am begging and pleading [with] you to help free my daughter who has been suffering innocently for fourteen years," Celia said in the letter.

"Today is the [39th] birthday of my daughter... I am hoping that she will be released."

A separate letter from the family addressed to Marcos said: "You are our only hope."

Mary Jane's family claimed that she went to Indonesia to work as a maid but was tricked into smuggling heroin by an international drug syndicate.

Neither Marcos nor Widodo mentioned Veloso's case in their prepared remarks delivered to the media after their meeting. There were no indications if her case was discussed by the two presidents, or if Jokowi received the letter.

On Tuesday, The Philippines' Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said he had renewed the appeal for clemency during a meeting with Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi.

MANILA TIMES 

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