JUST as when everybody seems to be hitting back at Celia Veloso, nanay ng Pinay na si Mary Jane Veloso, dahil binatikos nito ang kawalan ng tulong mula sa gobyerno, isang celebrity ang nagtanggol kay Nanay Celia – si Monique Wilson.
“With Nanay Celia, Mary Jane’s mother, when I spent three days with the family in Cilacap Indonesia, in the the days leading up to and right after, the scheduled execution that got suspended.
I am in utter shock, disbelief and disgust at the lack of compassion, comprehension of facts, and empathy of some people who are hitting the Veloso family for having the courage to speak the truth, and for holding our government accountable for ther criminal neglect and abandonment of Mary Jane – when it is their right to do all this after everything their family has suffered.
“They have a right to their rage and to their pain, and a right to expose all the obstructions to justice caused by our government that kept Mary Jane languishing in jail for five years and where she continues to sit.
“Five years that Nanay will never get back with her ‘bunso’, and five years young Macmac and little Darren will never get back with their Mama.
I urge netizens not just to know the full story first (and the story does not merely begin in the hour leading up to her suspended execution), but to look at the entire CONTEXT of the case, to more importantlh, to also IMAGINE if this happened to you and to your loved one.
Would your pain not make you rage too?” Monique posted on her Facebook page. Sabi ni Monique super cry si Nanay Celia for almost 30 minutes sa mga braso niya, “I have never been inside all the stories she shared with me for the next 3 days.
The extreme poverty, one hardship after the other, the blatant class discrimination the family experienced their whole lives, and leading up to the hands of government officials who mishandled the case.
“From being patronized, being given the run around, being ignored, being blamed, and where their own Philippine lawyer, Atty Edre Olalia was being kept from them – and much of this I myself witnessed in Cilacap- the way they were treated by government and embassy officials- like the family had no agency over their decision making, how they were talked down on as if they had no value, how they were always being made to feel grateful for the food, for the hotel, for the van- when in fact, this is all owed to them and much more,” chika ni Monique.
“Nanay Celia and the Veloso family deserve our support. They have been through hell and back. Let us not be part of their continued suffering by casting judgements and aspertions on their experience – their pain of which we have no right to speak,” dagdag pa ni Monique.