Mary Jane Veloso has been released from the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. granted her an absolute pardon, ending a 16-year detention that began with a drug-trafficking conviction in Indonesia.
Veloso left the prison on Friday night, one day after the pardon was granted. Bureau of Corrections Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr. gave her the pardon document and presented the formal release order. The bureau said she would be referred to the local government in her home province of Nueva Ecija for reintegration assistance and access to services intended to support her return to community life.
The pardon extinguished her remaining criminal liability in the Philippines. It concluded the domestic phase of a case that had moved between two countries and become a prominent cause for migrant-worker and anti-trafficking advocates.
Veloso travelled in 2010 expecting to work abroad. According to her account and that of her lawyers, recruiters redirected her to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and supplied a new suitcase. Indonesian authorities discovered heroin inside it. Veloso maintained that she did not know the drugs were there and that recruiters had used her as an unwitting courier. An Indonesian court convicted her of drug trafficking and sentenced her to death.
She came close to execution in 2015. Then-Philippine president Benigno Aquino III appealed directly to Indonesian officials, seeking time for Veloso to participate as a witness in proceedings against the people accused of recruiting her. Indonesia stayed the execution at the last minute.
A later agreement between Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's government and the Philippines allowed Veloso to return home in December 2024. Indonesia also gave Marcos discretion to grant clemency. From her transfer until Friday's release, she remained held at the women's correctional institution in Mandaluyong.
The legal proceedings against her alleged recruiters have continued separately. Cristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao were convicted of illegal recruitment in 2020 and remain detained. Veloso testified in June in a case accusing recruiters of human trafficking and illegal recruitment. Her testimony is part of the broader effort to establish how she came to carry the suitcase that led to her arrest.
Catapang said the release demonstrated the possibility of second chances and welcomed the prospect of Veloso rejoining her family. The pardon does not erase the years she spent under sentence or resolve every proceeding connected to her recruitment, but it removes the criminal restraint that remained after her transfer from Indonesia.
Veloso's release brings a major personal and diplomatic chapter to a close. Her case had required cooperation between Manila and Jakarta while raising questions about the vulnerability of people seeking work overseas to deceptive recruiters. On Friday, the immediate result was clear: after more than a decade in custody and a reprieve from execution, Veloso was free to leave prison.
