Philippines pardons drug mule after nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row

This file picture shows Mary Jane Veloso after being finger printed during a booking process inside the prison facilities at the Correctional Institution for Women in Manila on December 18, 2024. — AFP pic

First Published: Friday, 25 Sep 2026 4:27 PM MYT

MANILA, Sept 25 — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said today that he has pardoned Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina who spent nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row for drug trafficking before being sent home.

Veloso, 40, is expected to be freed after the pardon since there are no other active cases against her, though Marcos did not specify when that will happen.

The mother-of-two was arrested and sentenced to death by an Indonesian court in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin.

Nine years after she narrowly missed execution, Jakarta handed her over to Manila in 2024 under a “practical arrangement” for her repatriation, allowing her to serve the rest of her sentence in a Philippine prison.

“I’ll give you a scoop: I signed her pardon yesterday,” Marcos told reporters during a visit to the northern town of Batac today.

His spokeswoman earlier said that Marcos was seriously considering an absolute pardon for Veloso.

Veloso’s lawyer relayed the news to her family, her mother Celia Veloso told AFP by phone from their northern Philippine hometown.

“They were so happy,” she said of Mary Jane’s two sons.

“‘We will finally be able to be with mama,’ that’s what they told me.”

The case of the Filipina, who had travelled to Indonesia to seek work as a maid, had sparked uproar in the Philippines, where millions of its people seek better-paying work abroad.

Both she and her supporters claim she was duped by an international drug syndicate.

In 2015, Indonesia spared her from execution after Philippine authorities arrested her suspected recruiter. — AFP