00:00Former overseas Filipino worker Mary Jane Veloso walks free after 16 years in jail,
00:05following her pardon by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday, September 25.
00:10She leaves the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City,
00:13where she had been detained since her transfer to the Philippines from Indonesia in December 2024.
00:18She will be going home to her hometown in Nueva Ecija.
00:39Marcos announced the pardon earlier Friday.
00:46Marcos grants Veloso absolute pardon, which extinguishes her criminal liability from the case.
00:52Veloso was sentenced to death in Indonesia in October 2010
00:55over charges that she carried packs of heroin in her suitcase when she arrived at Yogyakarta in April that year.
01:02Veloso has always maintained her innocence,
01:04saying she was clueless about the contents of the suitcase her fellow townswomen and recruiter had given her.
01:09Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto agreed to transfer Veloso to the Philippines
01:13and gave Marcos the discretion to grant Veloso clemency.
01:17Her freedom comes a decade and a half after a global action to hashtag Save Mary Jane kicked off online.
