Manila – World boxing champion Manny Pacquiao added his voice to growing calls in the Philippines for Indonesia to spare a 30-year-old Filipino mother from execution for drug smuggling.
“On behalf of my country[wo]man, Mary Jane Veloso and all of the Filipino people, I am begging and knocking on your kind heart that your excellency will grant executive clemency to her,” he said in a televised appeal to Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Labour and women’s rights activists earlier picketed the Indonesian Embassy in Manila to plead for the life of Veloso, a mother of two who was convicted of smuggling 2.6 kilos of heroin in 2010.
The activists vowed to stay outside the embassy in Manila until Widodo stops Veloso’s execution or a second appeal filed by her
lawyers is granted.
Veloso was notified on Saturday that she would be executed within 72 hours. She was allowed to spend time with her two sons, aged 6 and 12, father, mother and siblings on Sunday.
Her children earlier issued an appeal to Widodo’s 19-year-old son to ask his father to stop the execution of their mother.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Monday personally appealed to Widodo to spare Veloso on the sidelines of a regional leaders’ summitin Kuala Lumpur. He said Widodo was “sympathetic,” and told him that he would ask the attorney general to look into the “legal issues.” – DPA-ANA