Marcos grants absolute pardon to Mary Jane Veloso

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September 25, 2026 | 11:28am

MANILA, Philippines — After more than a year in a Philippine prison without charges, Mary Jane Veloso, who was previously put on death row in Indonesia, will finally be free. 

This is after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed an executive clemency for Veloso, giving her a clean slate. 

“Pinirmahan ko na ‘yung pardon niya kahapon,” Marcos said in an ambush interview with reporters on Friday, September 25.

(I signed her pardon yesterday.)

Veloso is currently detained at the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong City after she returned to the Philippines on Dec. 18, 2024, from Indonesia. 

Veloso was arrested in 2010 on drug trafficking charges. In 2015, following the surrender of her illegal recruiter in the Philippines, then-President Benigno Aquino III made a last-minute plea to Indonesian authorities to spare her life. 

Granted a reprieve just hours before her scheduled execution by firing squad on April 29, 2015, the decision came so late that several print outlets mistakenly reported her death.