Mary Jane, yet another dispensable gov’t ‘commodity’

Somewhere out there, a dazed, vulnerable, young single mother sits alone and stays up in what seems like endless nights in a cold dingy cell, far, far away from her little children, waiting for what seems to be the inevitable. How could one erase the image of that forlorn look on Mary Jane Veloso’s face—20 years after Flor Contemplacion?

Mary Jane Veloso is a victim not only of soulless creatures who took advantage of her desperation. Ultimately, she is also a victim of this government and our society that still push our poor, young and hopeless to leave everything and risk anything in order to put food on family tables and chase their simple dream of living like human beings in faraway lands—20 years after Flor Contemplacion.

Twenty years after Flor Contemplacion, Mary Jane Veloso is yet another dispensable commodity of a government that now falls all over itself to save her after apparently doing too little and too late—again. Serious and credible allegations that she was not only deceived and set up but also effectively denied basic due process to adequately defend herself mandate that she be given a fair chance to legally establish her innocence. After all, there is no further motion for reconsideration in the afterlife.

Twenty years after Flor Contemplacion, seemingly hard and cold yet fallible laws in faraway lands are poised to ignore all humanitarian pleas storming the heavens with prayers to save the life of Mary Jane Veloso.

Twenty years before Mary Jane Veloso, we did not want to see Flor Contemplacion’s stoic face or hear her pained moans crying for mercy and justice as she was delivered to the gallows.

Against all odds, fast and furious steps in local and international venues are again being explored and exhausted by a team of Filipino human rights lawyers just recently retained by Mary Jane Veloso’s family to help stop her unjust execution in Indonesia—20 years after Flor Contemplacion.

—EDRE U. OLALIA, secretary general, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, [email protected]