The complexity of drug policy is an important component in understanding the case of Mary Jane Veloso

The study is an attempt to understand the case of Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipina who was incarcerated in Indonesia after her arrest on charges of drug smuggling. Veloso was arrested in 2010 and was sentenced to the death penalty. Many scholars, civil society groups, and policymakers have noted how the case of Veloso brings together the complex issues of human trafficking, drug smuggling, the global war on drugs, and human rights. In this paper, the main objective is to look at Veloso’s case in the context of the issue of illegal drugs in Indonesia. Considering the war on drugs waged by Indonesian President Joko Widodo as an important context, the case of Veloso can help us talk about the international drug control regime that had its roots in the early 20th century and gave rise to a view that illegal drugs are existential threats and thus, punitive policies such as wars on drugs began to emerge. Given the international drug control regime and domestic politics in Indonesia, we see how the dimension of drugs in Veloso’s case is the crucial aspect that rendered her case complex and international in scope.

The study from which the publication draws deals with the attempt to understand the politics and nuances of cases when Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) experience the precarity of being on death row abroad. The research is significant in several respects. First, it contributes to the continuing growth of the corpus of works that explore the complexities of Filipino labor migration. Second, and in relation to the first, it expands the conversations on the experiences and challenges being experienced by Filipino labor migrants through an understanding of situations when these Filipinos become caught at the intersection of transnational crime, foreign legal systems, and ultimately, incarceration and the threat of capital punishment. Thirdly, as the publication is about the case of Mary Jane Veloso, it provides additional discussions on the case that had spanned three presidential administrations in the Philippines and had brought forth conversations on transnational crime, drug smuggling, human trafficking, wars on drugs, Philippine-Indonesian relations, and the emerging field of migration diplomacy.

Author: Aaron Abel T. Mallari (Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://sc01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/tureview/article/view/240851

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