DAVAO CITY – The Philippine chapter of the International League of People’s Struggles said President Benigno Aquino III “cannot wash his hands off the government’s bungling of the case of Mary Jane Veloso.” Veloso was allegedly wrongly accused of drug trafficking from Malaysia to Indonesia.
On Saturday, Indonesia gave 72 hours notice to four Nigerians, two Australians, a Brazilian, a Ghanaian, a Filipino and an Indonesian national on death row that they are to be executed. A temporary reprieve had been granted to French citizen, Serge Atlaoui.
“The French government extended assistance to its citizen. We cannot say the same for Pres. Aquino who only paid lip-service in talking with his Indonesian counterpart at the 26th Asean Summit,” the ILPS-Phils said.
It further added that UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon has already added his voice to appeals for the convicts to be spared, but the Philippine government “did nothing” even at the United Nations level.
“The secretary general urges President Joko Widodo to urgently consider declaring a moratorium on capital punishment in Indonesia, with a view toward abolition,” Ban’s spokesperson said.
“Pres. Aquino has a lame foreign policy at all levels — bilateral, regional and global — having been a subservient lackey of US imperialist policies. It insists on labor-export to prop up the economy with migrant workers’ remittances and foreign exchange, but miserably fails to protect the rights and welfare of migrants,” the ILPS-Phils said.
The ILPS-Phils is joining today’s protest vigil at the Indonesian embassy and an indignation rally at Mendiola tomorrow.
