After more than a decade of legal battles, Mary Jane Veloso is scheduled to take the witness stand on 19 June in the human trafficking case she filed against her alleged recruiters.

The Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court Branch 210 will take her testimony inside the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, where she is currently detained, following court-approved procedures for witnesses in custody.

Veloso will testify against Maria Cristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao, who face charges of qualified trafficking in persons, estafa and illegal recruitment.

Although the cases are being tried by a regional court in Santo Domingo, Nueva Ecija, the Supreme Court ordered that her testimony be taken within the Mandaluyong prison compound due to her detention status.

Mandaluyong Presiding Judge Benedict Pichay III ordered that the case records and full stenographic transcripts be returned to the Nueva Ecija court immediately after the hearing.

Veloso’s testimony is central to the prosecution’s case. She remains the principal complainant and key witness in the long-running dispute involving her 2010 arrest in Indonesia.

The court directed the prison administration to prepare a suitable room for the proceedings to accommodate court staff, the involved parties, and their lawyers. Under court rules, Veloso’s entire examination must be completed within a single day.

Veloso, a former overseas Filipino worker, spent more than a decade on death row in Indonesia before being repatriated to the Philippines in December 2024. She has consistently maintained that she was deceived by recruiters who hid illegal drugs in her luggage without her knowledge.

The Supreme Court previously authorized special legal arrangements, including depositions by written interrogatories, to preserve her testimony given her detention status and the complexities of the cross-border case.