If the reports on the general “moratorium” on Indonesian executions are officially and formally validated, that decision is certainly welcome not only for Mary Jane Veloso but for all concerned. The purported rationale for the nonpriority of executions as pronounced by Indonesian authorities (i.e., to focus on the economy) may be amorphous and not self-evident, but the objective net effect is that lives are saved and will be saved.
We hope in time it leads to a permanent abolition as we have serious reservations about the death penalty’s real value in effectively deterring crime; besides, it precludes rehabilitation and reformation while not giving weight to humanitarian considerations. Worse, it may victimize innocent individuals who are wrongly convicted for different reasons or factors and bring them irretrievably to the afterlife.
We pray Veloso’s own temporary reprieve will be made permanent or that she be granted clemency and brought home soon to the waiting arms of her little boys this coming holiday season.
Independent of but complementary to all these, we will pursue in earnest the illegal recruitment, human trafficking and other charges against those who duped her and victimized similar poor and vulnerable young barrio women despite insensitive stunts by the accused to delay the legal proceedings on top of the already trademark sluggish legal pace of cases in the Philippines.
—EDRE U. OLALIA,
secretary general,
JOSALEE DEINLA,
assistant secretary general
for education, National Union of
Peoples’ Lawyers
(on behalf of Mary Jane and the Veloso family and Philippine private lawyers)