NCCP Asks For Prayers for Filipino Woman on Indonesia’s Death Row
A national group of non-Catholic churches onThursday encourage the faithful to include the Filipino woman facing execution in Indonesia in their prayers this Holy Week.
The National Council of Churches in the Philippines said that the Filipinos should pray Mary Jane Velasco would not be another Flor Contemplacion, an overseas Filipino worker who was hanged to death in Singapore in 1995 for murder.
“We also bring Mary Jane’s case to the public’s attention and the churches around the world. Let us join together in praying and calling on the Indonesian government to heed the appeal by the United Nations and various governments for clemency,” NCCP General Secretary Fr. Rex RB. Reyes Jr. in a statement.
Velasco is a 30-year-old single mother of two is set to be executed by firing squad for alleged drug trafficking. But Reyes said that the OFW was a victim of an organized drug syndicate.
“We maintain that Mary Jane is a victim of an organized criminal drug syndicate and should not be executed. As we observe this season of Lent and Christ’s victory over death, we are hopeful that Mary Jane, with us on her side, will triumph over this darkness in her life,” he wrote.
NCCP also said that the OFW was not given the proper legal assistance and that her case was not thoroughly investigated.
“According to accounts, Mary Jane was not provided with a lawyer for her defense. She was only provided with a translator. It is the same thing that happened to Flor Contemplacion. It is the same circumstance that many Filipinos who are now on death row overseas find themselves in, especially in the Middle East,” Reyes added.
Because of this, the council also calls on the government to take action to save the OFW.
The Palace has previously said that the government was doing everything possible within Indonesia’s legal framework to stop the execution.