(We yield this space to the statement of the Center for Women’s Resources due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
THE “absolute pardon” granted by President Duterte to US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton who raped and murdered Filipina transgender Jennifer Laude is deplorable. There is absolutely no justifiable reason to release Pemberton from detention. This once again proves that through the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), American military personnel can commit heinous crimes in the Philippines and still get special treatment. Worse, they can be pardoned by no less than the President himself.
This absolute pardon is yet another in a long string of injustices and impunity. On December 2015, the court found Pemberton guilty of the lower charge of homicide, instead of murder. He was given special treatment under the VFA and was allowed to be detained in a special facility in Camp Aguinaldo. On Sept. 1, the Olongapo court gave Pemberton a perfect GCTA (Good Conduct Time Allowance) score, and granted him early release.
The major reason that these rights violations are committed with impunity in the Philippines is the lopsided military agreements between the US and Philippine governments. Pemberton of the US Marine Corps was in the country for the US-Philippines Amphibious Landing Exercises (Philbex), a military exercise held annually under the Visiting Forces Agreement.
Before the murder of Jennifer Laude several crimes had been committed in the past by American servicemen who were in the country for VFA-related activities. Such were the cases of Buyong-Buyong Isnijal killed by US soldier Reggie Lane in Basilan in 2002 and the subsequent case of mysterious death of Dr. Julius Aguila after testifying that three US soldiers brought Buyong-Buyong to his hospital in 2004. In the same year, Arsid Baharon was shot by US soldiers, whose identity was withheld by US authorities during a military operation in Zamboanga City and in 2005, the case of “Nicole” who filed rape charges against US soldiers Daniel Smith, Keith Silkwood, Chad Carpentier and Dominic Duplantis.
In 2008, Rawina Wahid was shot in a military operation participated in by US Navy soldiers in Sulu where seven other civilians, including Rawina’s husband and two children, were killed; in 2009 “Vanessa” was raped by a US Marine in Makati City. She refused to press charges because she did not want to suffer the same fate as “Nicole”. In 2012, Ahbam Juhurin, a fisherman, died while his son suffered serious injuries after a US speedboat rammed into their small fishing boat off Basilan Island.
These cases remain unsolved, and the perpetrators are left unpunished. And the list would go on so long as the VFA is in place and Philippine authorities let these servicemen get away with such crimes. Now more than ever, the call for the abrogation of VFA and other lopsided military agreements must be intensified.
