Manila: A rights lawyer has agreed to represent relatives of a transgender woman allegedly killed by an American serviceman in central Luzon last week.
Members of Congress and the rights commission also called for parallel investigations of the incident that sparked strong sentiments against the United States, the intensification of which could affect the fate of two defence agreements forged by the Philippines and the United States 15 years ago and early this year, sources told Gulf News.
Rights lawyer Harry Roque will handle the case for the family of Jennifer Laude, 26, (whose birth name was Jeffrey) who was brutally murdered in a bathroom in a lodge in Olongapo City last Saturday, Laude’s mother Juliet confirmed.
The Laude family and the lawyer held talks even before the Philippine National Police (PNP) prepared to lodge a complaint against Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton in Olongapo City on Wednesday, said a staff from Roque’s office in Makati City.
Asked about the greatest problem he will encounter in handling the case, Roque said, “The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which was signed by the executive branches of the US and Philippines in February 1998 and ratified by the Senate in May 1999, has an iniquitous provision on the issue of custody for US servicemen found guilty of violating Philippine laws. In an issue like this, history tells us that foreign military presence in the Philippines will always collide with national interest.”
As soon as a witness identified Pemberton as the suspected killer of Laude, American authorities took custody of him, including three other US servicemen, which resulted in their detention aboard the USS Peleliu that was docked in Subic Bay on October 11.
Investigators were aided by multiple CCTV videos that caught a number of incriminating incidents on tape: three other US servicemen seen with Pemberton when he met Laude at a disco on the evening of October 11; Pemberton and Laude checking in at a lodge; and Pemberton leaving the lodge alone at 11.45pm the same evening.
Possible delays
Reacting to a possible delay in the filing of the complaint against Pemberton, Elmer Maniego, an investigator of the government-run Commission on Human Rights in central Luzon said, “We want to know if the Philippine National Police is not delaying the filing of the complaint against the American serviceman.”
Speaking against the VFA, Senator Miriam Santiago, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said, “I called for an investigation of the murder case of Laude in the Senate on October 22.
“It is an opportunity to renew my call to give the US one year of notice for the abrogation of the VFA,” she added.
Explaining two ways the VFA is “one-sided” at the expense of the Philippine government, Santiago said, “There is a question of who has jurisdiction and the power to detain an allegedly erring US serviceman before actual judgement in court. It means it is not easy to subpoena nor invite erring US servicemen to our hearings.”
“Once a crime under Philippine law is declared against an erring US serviceman, jurisdiction automatically belongs to the Philippines. But the VFA has a provision that the US regains jurisdiction over the erring serviceman upon mere request to the Philippine government. The VFA has no provision for other requirements needed to compel the Philippine government to help fulfil that request,” Santiago said.
With these provisions in the VFA, Santiago said, “We are always on the wrong side of the VFA — it seemed made for the sake of a foreign power.”
“The Aquino administration has already surrendered Pfc Pemberton to Pentagon’s hands,” said Congressman Terry Ridon of Youth, Partylist, at the House of Representatives, in reaction to the statement of Malacanang, the presidential palace, that tasked the Foreign Affairs Department to request the US Embassy to hand Pemberton over to Philippine authorities.
Ridon also filed a resolution that called on the house committees on foreign affairs and national defence to conduct a joint investigation on Laude’s death and help lawmakers look deeper into VFA’s “onerous provisions”.
Looking forward, Ridon said that Laude’s death should help the Philippine government revoke its bilateral military agreements, including the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement that was signed early this year by counterpart executive branches of the Philippines and the US. It allowed increased US troops and their rotation in Philippine bases nationwide.
Senator Francis Escudero, former chair of the Senate Committee on National Defence, expressed worry over VFA’s one year prescription to prosecute a case involving an allegedly erring US serviceman.
Pemberton participated in the recently concluded Amphibious Landing Exercises, a joint military exercise between Filipino and American soldiers. The VFA has allowed the resumption of joint war games between the Philippines and the US since early 2000.
Observers said the history of VFA’s “one-sidedness” began to emerge in 2006, when a lower regional trial court convicted US Marine, Lance Corporal Daniel Smith for the raping of a Filipino woman in Subic, Zambales in 2005.
Smith was briefly detained in a jail in Makati City, but the Philippine foreign affairs department gave him up to the US government, following a request that he should serve his term inside Manila’s US Embassy.
In 2009, the Court of Appeals dismissed the case after the rape victim retracted and claimed hazy circumstances surrounding the incident.
