End all injustice
TO SOME, the killing of Jeffrey/Jennifer Laude brings back the aftertaste of another “miscarriage of justice” involving a Filipino victim and an American perpetrator.
In December 2006, the Makati Regional Court convicted Lance Corporal Daniel Smith of raping a Filipina given the pseudonym of Nicole in Olongapo City on Nov. 1, 2005. On March 12, 2009, Nicole signed a sworn affidavit exonerating Smith of rape. This affidavit was submitted to the Court of Appeals, which reversed Smith’s conviction on April 23, 2009.
Then and now, many Filipinos decried what they perceived as the slow grinding of the wheels of justice. The more militant are calling for the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a bilateral defense pact that covers the joint military training of Filipino and American troops in the country.
Like Smith, Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton is another US Marine who participated in joint military exercises in the country. He is implicated in the killing of Laude in an Olangapo inn last weekend.
Militants assert that Nicole and Laude are just two of the thousands victimized through rape and other violence in US military bases in the country after World War II. Smith is the only American serviceman who was convicted of rape but he was not remanded into custody in a Philippine jail. He was transferred to the US Embassy until he learned about the reversal of his conviction after Nicole recanted.
The frustrating progression of the Nicole and Laude investigations reinforce the lessons of a “continuing past:” the delusion of parity in Philippine-US friendship, the injustice of the former shouldering the burden of maintaining the patronage of the latter at the cost of sacrificing the Filipinos’ real interests and the country’s security.
Gender injustice
There is another similarity between the cases of Nicole and Laude. They are victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), GBV is directed at a person due to his or her gender. Before she recanted, Nicole testified that after being plied with drinks in a bar, she was raped in a van by Smith while four other servicemen egged him on. She was then carried out by her hands and feet and dumped on the pavement, wearing only a shirt and underwear.
A transgender woman last seen checking in an inn with Pemberton, Laude was found later by an inn employee slumped in the bathroom, his/her head shoved in a toilet bowl. An autopsy showed that death was caused by drowning. Last Oct. 17, Olangapo City police said that Laude was a victim of hate crime, killed when he/she was found out to be “gay” by the partner engaging him/her for “sex services.” This pronouncement has been denounced as inaccurate, baseless and discriminatory of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
After falling prey to horrific abuse, GBV victims undergo “secondary victimization,” points out the EIGE.
This happens when GBV victims get into contact with the police, prosecutors, judiciary, health care institutions and media. The EIGE calls out for the need to put in place and train stakeholders in the protocols for making professionals sensitive to and effective in dealing with victims of GBV.
Awareness and education campaigns are crucial for exposing practices that lead to secondary victimization.
Nicole, who never appeared on trial and in public without shielding her face, was ravaged again and again in media reports that speculated on her character, the circumstances leading to her rape, and allegations that consensual sex, not rape, took place between her and Smith. National broadsheets ran sensitive portions of her court testimony, a journalistic excess matched only by the more prurient coverage in tabloids and discussions on the Internet. The circus of sensationalism reached a peak when Nicole recanted and left for the US.
Unable to defend himself, Laude has been the butt of speculation, innuendoes and even online surveys that absolved his/her perpetrator of killing him/her. His/her choice to be a transgender has been alluded to in mainstream media and more openly on the Internet as part of his/her life of deception, including his/her alleged selling of sexual services and reported attempt to steal from Pemberton. The LGBT community cites the bashing of Laude as a manifestation of society’s misunderstanding, non-acceptance and judgment despite the passage of ordinances in Cebu, Davao, Quezon, Bacolod, Angeles and other local governments that prohibit and penalize discrimination against persons due to their sexual preference, among others.
Even as the loudest cry is for justice to be granted to Laude and his/her family, the LGBT community and other stakeholders urge the public to assess also their attitudes to those who suffer the injustice of being the victims of hate crimes, singled out for their choice to be an object of extreme prejudice and injustice.