Filipino activists appeal for the life of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino woman on Indonesia's death row, during a rally outside the Indonesian embassy in Manila in 2015. (Photo by Mark Saludes)
A Philippine bishop has called on authorities to speed up the prosecution of the alleged recruiters of Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipino woman on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking.
"The government should continue to focus with resolve their efforts to go after illegal and exploitative recruiters," said Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, head of the Episcopal Commission on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.
The prelate was speaking Feb. 12 after Veloso's alleged recruiters refused to enter a plea during their Feb. 11 arraignment on human-trafficking charges.
Judge Nelso Tribiana of the Nueva Ecija Regional Trial Court entered a "not guilty" plea for Maria Cristina Sergio and her partner, Julius Lacanilao, before setting the next hearing for March 9.
Sergio and Lacanilao's refusal to enter a plea was "a legal strategy" that should not derail the legal process "that should proceed with haste," Santos said.
The prelate urged the government to be more resolute in going after recruiters who victimize overseas Filipino workers and "put them to much danger and enslavement."
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers also called on the Philippine government to ensure that Veloso comes home alive by expediting the case against the alleged recruiters.
Veloso is facing the death penalty for attempting to smuggle 2.6 kilograms of heroin into Indonesia.
She was scheduled to go before a firing squad last April, but the execution was postponed at the last minute, pending an investigation into her claim that she was the victim of human trafficking.
In a letter addressed to the Philippine government, the international lawyers' group said Veloso's case should "not drown in all the fanfare" for the coming national elections in the Philippines.
The group expressed dismay over what they described as the "snail's pace" of the case "due mainly to the high-handed dilatory legal tactics that the defense lawyers have overzealously resorted to in court."
"We call on the Philippine government to exert all efforts to expedite the prosecution of [Veloso]'s traffickers," the group said.
It also appealed to the Indonesian government to keep Veloso's reprieve in effect "for as long as the legal proceedings in the Philippines are going on, and/or to magnanimously grant her clemency on both legal and humanitarian grounds."
In 2015, Indonesia executed 14 people by firing squad, including citizens from Brazil, the Netherlands, Australia, and Nigeria.