“This is a new life for me and I will have a new beginning in the Philippines,” she told a news conference, adding that she wanted to spend Christmas with her family.

“I have to go home because I have a family there, I have my children waiting for me.”

While the agreement states that Ms Veloso will return as a prisoner, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos could grant her a reprieve.

Ms Veloso was arrested in April 2010 at Yogyakarta airport.

She said she was convinced by the daughter of one of her godparents to travel to Indonesia to start a new job as a maid.

She claimed that the woman’s male friends gave her new clothes and a new bag, which she was unaware had heroin sewn into it.

She was due to face the firing squad in 2015, but the Philippine government won a last-minute reprieve for her after the woman suspected of recruiting her was arrested and put on trial for human trafficking, while Ms Veloso was named a prosecution witness.

Her reprieve was so late that several newspapers in the Philippines went to print with front pages and headlines reporting it had happened.