Why must sex and crime be the irritant again?
A decade ago, U.S. serviceman Lance Corporal Daniel Smith was charged with raping one “Nicole,” a Filipina, inside a traveling van while other soldiers allegedly cheered. The moving violation and the side entertainment didn’t amuse Filipinos who expressed their distrust in the U.S. at 35% in a 2005 poll as compared to 76% in a March 2014 survey.
Now this case of the murder of Jennifer (Jeffrey) Laude, 26, in Olongapo City against Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton of the U.S. Marines who was last seen with the transgender Filipina before she was drowned to death in a motel toilet bowl.
As the Smith case was the first to be tried under the Visiting Forces Agreement, a treaty that allows entry of American troops to the Philippines since 1992 when the closure of U.S. bases evicted them, the Pemberton case has come up while negotiations are going on about the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Details of the military-to-military pact are still to be decided and the new sex-murder case would hover over the talks.
It’s not the military exercise that provides opportunity for crime to be committed. It’s the rest and recreation during breaks or after the war games. The places where the U.S. vessels dock inevitably supply women and gays and transgender persons to meet the R&R demand.
Jurisdiction
The problem with the crimes is jurisdiction (at the pleasure of the U.S.) and investigation (access to witnesses and evidence hampered or stalled).
In the Smith case, the appeals court acquitted the soldier who was detained in the U.S. Embassy, not in a Philippine prison as the Supreme Court ruled, until his release.
How will the Pemberton case pan out? Protests have already started and a Senate hearing looms. The old questions on sovereignty are back.