By Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos
Malacañang has said that the fate of convicted Filipino drug mule Mary Jane Veloso is in the hands of the Indonesian government following her request to President Duterte to let her testify against her recruiters on her 33rd birth anniversary last Jan. 10.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, in a Palace press briefing, said the President’s hands are tied since she is detained in a foreign country.
“I don’t understand what exactly the President can do in this regard. She is detained in foreign soil because of breach Indonesian penal laws,” Roque said.
“She continues to be alive despite being meted the death penalty. But there is such a thing as ‘sovereignty,’ and the matter is completely in the hands of the Indonesian government,” he added.
Roque said that the Indonesian government has been showing clemency since her death was put off.
“I think the Indonesia government, by not carrying out the punishment of death penalty, has shown clemency on a daily basis,” he said.
Veloso is on Death Row and was supposed to be executed by firing squad after smuggling 2.6 kilograms of heroin into Indonesia in 2010. She denied having knowledge about the contraband.