Student protesters hold a picture of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino convicted drug trafficker in Indonesia, as they urge Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to save her from execution during a rally near the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016. Duterte visited Indonesia last week where he discussed the fate of Veloso with his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo. AP File Photo
The Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) on Wednesday cried foul over the Nueva Ecija court’s ruling allowing the taking of testimony of convicted Filipina drug mule Mary Jane Veloso.
In a 10-page manifestation submitted by PAO on behalf of Maria Cristina Sergio and her live-in partner Julius Lacanilao filed before Sto. Domingo, Nueva Ecija Regional Trial Court Branch 88, they said allowing the deposition of Veloso violates the 1987 Constitution.
READ: Ecija judge to get Veloso’s deposition
PAO Chief Persida Rueda-Acosta said they should be allowed by the court to confront Veloso face-to-face because failure to do so would be a violation of their constitutional right.
“The accused’s basic constitutional right to confrontation and meeting the witnesses against them face to face shall be violated if the court will let itself be wrongfully used as a tool to conduct the deposition proceedings that may expose the entire judiciary into mockery of justice and judicial processes,” they added specifically referring to Section 14 paragraph 2 of the Bill of Rights.
Section 14, paragraph 2 provides that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved, and shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to have a speedy, impartial, and public trial, to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have compulsory process to secure the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence in his behalf…”
Acosta added that they wanted to set the records straight and to end their erroneous prosecution.
She added Sergio and Lacanilao are “being used as sacrificial lamb to save a convicted drug mule.”
The prosecution has presented Veloso’s affidavits as part of their evidence that she sworn to while in detention in Indonesia where she is languishing on death row.
Veloso said she was duped by Sergio and Lacanilao into bringing the drug-laden luggage to Indonesia in 2010 where she was arrested upon her arrival at the Yogyakarta airport.
The death sentence on Veloso was temporarily put to halt last April 29, 2015 after then President Benigno Aquino III appealed her case to Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
READ: Aquino to meet Widodo, appeal Veloso case
In the same manifestation, Sergio and Lacanilao said the previous administration was only constrained to file cases against them in hopes that it may convince Indonesian authorities to stall Veloso’s execution. RAM