DAVAO CITY – Militant lawmakers of Gabriela Women’s Partylist said they are hopeful that sustained pressure from public protests will bring home the overseas Filipino worker, Mary Jane Veloso, whose death sentence in Indonesia was reprieved.
“It was a result of immense pressure brought on by the Filipino people on the Indonesian government amid President Aquino’s premature throwing in of the towel to save her life,” said Representatives Emmi de Jesus and Luzviminda Ilagan.
The lawmakers said while Veloso’s life has been momentarily spared “she continues to suffer under gross injustices of Aquino’s overall migrant labor policies and practices.”
“The fight of women OFWs and their families continues, let us not be complacent because Mary Jane is still unsafe. Let us also remember that there are hundreds of OFWs on death row including Rose Dacanay in Riyadh, and any time Mary Jane may be executed in Indonesia,” De Jesus said.
For her part, Ilagan said that the people’s mass struggles bore fruit in Mary Jane’s temporary reprieve from the firing squad.
“Six thousand Filipinos still leave the country and many end up like Mary Jane. We need to push for the resignation of the uncaring and unfeeling president to prevent more Filipinos from getting caught in trafficking, imprisonment, and civil wars,” Ilagan said.
