Filipino maid lost in crossfire of SE Asia’s drug wars

When you come to think of it, Mary Jane Veloso, who – as this is being written – is still alive in an Indonesian jail even as she faces execution on drugs charges, has received better treatment at the hands of her captors than thousands of her fellow Filipinos suspected of being either drug pushers or users.

Veloso was arrested at Yogyakarta Airport in 2010 for smuggling 2.6 kilos of heroin. She was found guilty and scheduled for execution along with several other foreigners, but was excluded from the list after Manila assured Jakarta it had caught the guilty parties who had deceived Veloso, a maid, into acting as a drug courier.

Although Indonesian President Joko Widodo has launched a tough campaign against drug use in his country, it pales in comparison with the “war against drugs” that his Philippine counterpart Duterte unleashed even before he took office. To date an estimated 3,000 suspects have been killed in police shoot-outs or in summary executions carried out by unknown assassins. Thousands more have surrendered to local authorities, although many of those who reported to their village chiefs have since ended up in the “kill list”.

Veloso teetered even closer to death recently when Duterte, during a visit to Indonesia, reportedly gave Jokowi the green light for her execution in accordance with Indonesian law. 

“President Duterte has given the go-ahead to proceed with the execution,” Jokowi was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency. “I told him that Mary Jane [had been found guilty] for carrying 2.6 kilograms of heroin. I also told him about the delay in the execution during the meeting.”

Duterte’s office has since denied those were the words used.

 “There was no endorsement [of the execution],” said presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella. “He simply said: ‘Follow your own laws, I will not interfere.’”

However, it’s an extremely fine line between “I will not interfere” and “giving the go-ahead”.

Also, before his meeting with Jokowi, Duterte assured the Philippine media he would plead for Veloso’s life.

He apparently backtracked – in stark contrast to his previously pugnacious approach to most issues.

News of Veloso’s inclusion last year on a list of drug traffickers set to face a firing squad was greeted by a firestorm of public outrage in the Philippines. Many denounced what they called the government’s “neglect” of Veloso’s case and failure to stop her execution.

Now Duterte’s spokesperson says there is no need to plead for clemency for Veloso, since she “is still not scheduled for execution”.

In the wake Filipino officialdom’s seeming complacency towards Veloso’s fate, public reaction seems to be strangely muted in turn.

Social media posts from Filipinos even seemed to turn the tables on Veloso, saying that, as a drug mule, she deserved her imprisonment and imminent execution.

These are probably the same folks who excoriate the “bleeding hearts” among us for raising human rights concerns about the thousands of extrajudicial killings and warrantless arrests in Duterte’s “drugs war”. And if they see nothing wrong with the relentless killing and climate of fear created around the issue of drugs, then how could they be expected to feel compassion for an accused drug mule like Veloso?

Veloso’s supporters believe that a trial would prove she was used as a pawn.

“Winning the case will codify Mary Jane’s innocence and erase all doubts that she should be spared from execution,” said Garry Martinez, chair of Migrante International.

Yet it seems many of her compatriots are no longer listening.

How could we Filipinos have felt an up-welling of sympathy for Veloso – a mother of two young children – just a few months ago, yet now see her as deserving of death for perhaps unknowingly transporting drugs?

Is it because we have collectively agreed that our own drugs problem is of higher priority than all other social, economic and political issues we face?

If so, then let’s stop all the pretence and tell Veloso: Sorry, we feel bad about your captivity on death row and imminent death by firing squad but, you know, we’ve got problems of our own and bigger fish to fry in our quest for … what exactly? The peace and quiet of the dead and the complicit.