#SaveMaryJane: A cause worth fighting for during the glorious days of social media

#SaveMaryJane. Former death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso waves after arriving at the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City, on December 18, 2024.

Lisa Marie David/Reuters

In 2015, citizens all over the world campaigned to stop the execution of Mary Jane Veloso — a time when social media was a force for social good

AT A GLANCE

• Mary Jane Veloso, an overseas Filipino worker sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking, was pardoned by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after a decade-long global campaign to #SaveMaryJane.
• The campaign, which began in 2015, mobilized hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and led to significant political pressure, including a plea from then-President Aquino to the Indonesian government.
• Following changes in leadership in both the Philippines and Indonesia, Veloso was transferred to a Philippine jail in December 2024, marking a hopeful new chapter for her and her family.

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MANILA, Philippines – She’s now going to be free, more than a decade after a global action to #SaveMaryJane kicked off online and became the fastest growing petition on Change.org, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday, September 25, pardoned Mary Jane Veloso, the overseas Filipino worker who was sentenced to death in Indonesia in October 2010 over charges she carried packs of heroin in her suitcase when she arrived at a Yogyakarta airport from Kuala Lumpur in April that year.

Despite repeated appeals by the Benigno Aquino III administration at the time, an Indonesian court scheduled her execution by firing squad on April 29, 2015, or five years after she was meted the death penalty. 

The Rappler newsroom, barely three years old then, was enraged. 

MovePH, our citizen engagement arm, made a quick decision to connect with partners and launch an online campaign to #SaveMaryJane. Leading the newsroom effort was Move’s organizer at the time, Voltaire Tupaz, who tapped Move’s local networks, coordinated with groups that had already been campaigning for Veloso’s freedom, identified advocates in Indonesia, and crafted a content-and-community plan with partners.

On April 1, 2015, Move amplified ways to help save Mary Jane from death row. Voltaire sat down with Mary Jane’s mother on April 22 for a Rappler Talk interview.

The global action to #SaveMaryJane on Change.org kicked off on April 26, mobilizing citizens from 127 countries to sign the petition — in what was described as a “huge and rare” outcome from a Philippine initiative. 

In this story, Voltaire wrote how the petition reached the Indonesian president during that period, Jokowi Widodo — a time when social media was seen as a potent force for change and citizens were sharing the same sets of facts and truths. 

The phone call

Intense public focus on the campaign enabled then-president “Noynoy” Aquino to once again make a final plea through a phone call on April 28 to then-Indonesian foreign minister Retno Masurdi. Aquino asked the Indonesian government to turn Mary Jane into a state witness against her recruiters who were allegedly part of a drug trafficking syndicate.

Here’s a photo of when the late Aquino made the call.

Things moved fast. Mary Jane’s recruiters surrendered to the Philippine police.

At 2:20 am on April 29, or 11 hours before she was to be shot by firing squad, then-foreign secretary Albert Del Rosario, through his spokesman, told reporters that Indonesia confirmed that Mary Jane’s execution had been put on hold. 

#MaryJaneLives trended online.

After Rodrigo Duterte was elected president in 2016, he visited Indonesia and assured Jokowi that he would not stop Veloso’s execution. Duterte’s presidency was marked by a brutal war on drugs.

Both countries elected new presidents, however: Marcos in 2022 and Prabowo Subianto in 2024. Fresh from a huge victory in 2024, the Indonesian leader said his government was going to allow Veloso to be transferred to a Philippine jail.

A week before Christmas in December that year, Veloso arrived in the Philippines. She has been detained at the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City since then, and in June testified against her recruiters.

This Christmas will be different for her and her family — and for those who believe that there are causes worth fighting for. And women worth saving. – Rappler.com