Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said that President Bongbong Marcos will most likely raise the case of convicted Filipina Mary Jane Veloso on his first state visit to Indonesia next week.
Manalo made the statement when he was asked Gabriela party-list representative Arlene Brosas about the updates on Filipinos facing death sentences abroad, many of them women.
“We will go to Indonesia. Most likely, we will raise this issue and concerns to Indonesian officials,” Manalo said.
“This is one of the issues which we will raise during the state visit,” he added.
Veloso is detained in Indonesia due to drug trafficking charges. She was supposed to be executed by firing squad in 2015 but the late President Noynoy Aquino made an appeal to the Indonesian government to spare her.
“We have asked Indonesia to hold any execution because we are trying to show that she was a victim, not a perpetrator,” DFA Undersecretary Ed De Vega said.
