00:00Good evening, Luzon Visayas and Mindanao.
00:04Tomorrow, President Bongbong Marcos will give the executive clemency
00:10to the death row convict in Indonesia, Mary Jane Veloso.
00:14Even if she is saved from the prison, she will still be jailed in the Philippines
00:19after more than a decade.
00:21Foreign Affairs and Justice Department said
00:24it is possible that there are certain conditions in Indonesia that the Philippines must follow.
00:31And Iwan Mayrina was there.
00:36Indonesia itself said
00:38it is time to return the Philippines to the death row convict, Mary Jane Veloso.
00:42President Bongbong Marcos is in the power to give her pardon,
00:45especially since there is no death penalty in the Philippines.
00:48So in her visit to the groundbreaking of a solar farm in Nueva Ecija,
00:51the question to the President is, is it possible to give executive clemency to Veloso?
00:55We will see. We will see.
00:57It is not yet clear how...
01:01This is the first time this has happened.
01:04So, everything is on the table.
01:07What is clear according to the President is that Veloso is now safe from the prison
01:12because the sentence for life in prison is already too low.
01:16We have been working on this for all the previous...
01:20Not just me, this has been going on for 10 years.
01:22This has been going on for 10 years.
01:24But what we did is we commuted her sentence from death sentence to life imprisonment.
01:30With the agreement between Indonesia and the Philippines
01:34for her transfer here to the Philippines,
01:37effectively the Indonesian government agreed to lower or commute her sentence
01:44from death penalty to life imprisonment.
01:47Meanwhile, according to Veloso's lawyer...
01:50Commutation is to lower or reduce the sentence
01:56to reduce the death penalty.
01:59One is death, the other is prison. It's different.
02:07According to the Department of Justice,
02:09under the agreement of returning to the Philippines to Veloso,
02:12it does not mean that she will be released soon.
02:14The Philippines is obligated to follow the possible conditions of Indonesia,
02:18such as the continuation of her sentence for drug trafficking,
02:22aside from the prison sentence that is prohibited by our laws.
02:26We need to give respect to the judgment made by the Indonesian courts
02:34to her that she was sentenced to life imprisonment.
02:42We cannot turn a blind eye to it.
02:45When it comes to this, we automatically need to pardon her or give her an executive clemency.
02:51But according to Veloso's lawyer, Indonesia has no power over Veloso.
02:55It's time for her to return here.
02:57Mary Jane's case in Indonesia is over legally.
03:02How is that? There is no death penalty.
03:04So the range of possibilities is,
03:06she can be sentenced to 40 years of permanent reclusion,
03:12or we want to give her an absolute pardon.
03:18She will not be imprisoned for even a second.
03:20When she returns to the Philippines,
03:22she will continue to seek her recruiter for the cases of human trafficking and estafa.
03:26The government is also checking Mary Jane's safety,
03:29who is under the care of the Bureau of Corrections.
03:32For GMA Indigrated News, Ivan Mayrina, for 24 Hours.
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