Solomonic

Mary Jane Veloso, convicted drug trafficker, will be returning home soon. This represents the triumph of diplomacy and goodwill over all else.

We all know the story.

Mary Jane comes from the humblest roots in Nueva Ecija. Despite being a nursing mother, she was convinced to work abroad by an illegal recruiter. She left her very young children behind, expecting to earn enough to secure their future.

After arriving in Malaysia, she was told to proceed to Adisucipto International Airport, Yogyakarta, Indonesia and bring a bag along with her. The bag, it turns out, contained 2.6 kilos of heroin. Mary Jane was made an unwitting mule. She was intercepted at the airport.

There is no contesting the facts of this case.

Mary Jane, although unaware of the dangerous contents of the bag she was asked to carry, was serving as a drug mule. She is fully responsible for the contents of the bag she carried.

Indonesia, like most of Southeast Asia, has tough drug laws. The illegal drugs found in Mary Jane’s possession merited the death penalty under Indonesia’s laws. The law may be harsh, but it is the law.

Filipinos tend to treat the law as elastic, sometimes negotiable. Human rights activists are particularly vulnerable to this frailty: to see poverty as something of a mitigating factor in every crime. But judges are not supposed to perform sociological analysis on every defendant. They simply evaluate the evidence. This is how a legal system operates.

On the basis of their frailty, activists have been pressing the Philippine government to intervene in Mary Jane’s case. They mounted demonstrations at every opportunity and every time a Filipino leader travels to Jakarta. They wanted to transform a clear-cut judicial decision into a political and diplomatic one.

Our diplomats might have found the clamor from human rights activists a nuisance. No country wants to interfere in another country’s judicial process. But interference is precisely what our activists are demanding of our government.

Against normal diplomatic decorum, our government appealed several times over the last 14 years to the Indonesian government on humanitarian grounds.

First, we pleaded to delay the Mary Jane’s execution. Jakarta relented. Next, we pleaded with the Indonesian government to commute the sentence to life in prison. After some work, Jakarta eventually granted this plea.

Still, the human rights activists wanted our government to do more – possibly in the area of winning a grant of clemency from Indonesia’s leaders. We tried doing that, too, although fully aware that diminishing the sentence on the poor girl from Nueva Ecija would undermine the credibility of Indonesia’s tough laws.

Jakarta could not possibly grant the Philippine government pleadings without weakening its tough stance against illegal drugs. But at the same instance, Jakarta values the long-standing friendship between our two countries. Disregarding our pleadings, inopportune as they may be, ran against their efforts at striking fear in the hearts of drug traffickers – including the drug mules duped into performing crimes.

Recently, Jakarta found a suitable – if Solomonic – solution to this festering issue.

A few days ago, Jakarta informed us of Mary Jane’s transfer to Philippine custody. She is due to be flown to the Philippines in a matter of days. This should warm the bleeding hearts of those asking that our government continue pressuring a friendly government to spare the life of a drug mule.

Unless there are conditionalities we do not yet know, the Philippine government may choose to grant Mary Jane clemency after she has been transferred. The grant of clemency will spare her of further detention.

Jakarta might feel slighted, however, if we do this too quickly after the transfer. Furthermore, it will show us to be soft on drugs.

The Philippines does not have a death penalty. This at least ensures Mary Jane will survive this traumatic experience. If clemency is granted, she will walk free.

We all want to put this drama behind us. But we should make haste slowly.

Naga

I received a rather wordy letter from a lawyer representing the mayor of Naga City replying to my column written shortly after the calamity (Misappropriated, Oct. 31, 2024). The letter articulates the local government’s side regarding the calamity wrought by Severe Tropical Storm Kristine on the city.

The latter makes the following points:

Kristine dumped more rain on Camarines Sur than Ondoy did on Metro Manila. No amount of mitigation could have avoided the flooding that happened. Dredging the Bicol and Naga rivers (the responsibility of the DPWH) could not have prevented the flooding.

The P132-billion allocation for flood control in the Bicol region is entirely in the hands of the DPWH. Only P455 million was allocated for four flood control projects in Naga.

The funds of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund and the Local Development Fund were not misappropriated. No underspending happened even if the development fund ended up with a P23-million balance for 2023.

There were no structural issues with the Balatas Evacuation Center. The defects on some walls, floors and roof have been rectified by the contractor. The repairs on the Jesse Robredo Coliseum were due to previous typhoons.

The local government takes COA’s audit opinions seriously and uses these to guide future projects. The local disaster fund has been realigned to acquire equipment found lacking.

In a word, the local government arguably performed reasonably well.