Pacquiao visits Veloso, prays for her and receives ‘thank you’ gift

Boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and his wife Jinkee praying with convict Mary Jane Veloso.
(Photo from Pacquiao’s official Facebook account)

Boxing champ and Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao, together with his wife Jinkee and several embassy officials and lawyers, visited drug trafficking convict Mary Jane Veloso in Indonesia on Friday.

During their short meeting, Pacquiao and his wife uttered words of comfort and later on prayed with Veloso. They then exchanged gifts, with Pacquiao giving Veloso money and her handing over a blue ‘batik’ scarf adorned with his nickname ‘Pacman.’

“MJ reportedly gave him a craft she made [as a ‘thank you’ gift] which he wore at once,” one of Veloso’s lawyers Edre Olalia said in a Philippine Daily Inquirer report.

“Press briefing [was] cancelled because it was mayhem as press, spectators & police were competing for space,” Olalia added.

Conversely, Pacquiao was able to entertain questions of some reporters after his visit.

“We’re hoping to help save Mary Jane’s life, I think Mary Jane is a victim of human-trafficking,” he said, adding that he wanted to raise Veloso’s case to Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

Veloso has been convicted for drug trafficking after being caught hiding 2.6 kilograms of heroin in the lining of her suitcase upon her arrival in Indonesia from the Philippines in 2010.

Veloso has then been among the nine convicts scheduled for execution by firing squad earlier this year. But with her alleged recruiters Maria Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao surfacing just hours before her scheduled execution, she was granted reprieve on her claims of being a human trafficking victim.

Allowing the Philippines to proceed with court hearings on Veloso’s case against her recruiters, Indonesian authorities then detained her at the Wirogunan prison in Yogyakarta.

Widodo, however, repeatedly reiterated that Indonesia would not grant clemency for drug traffickers as the country faced alarmingly high narcotics use in the recent years.