This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 39, November 6-12, 2005
On rape of Filipina by
U.S. Marines:
Members of the women’s groups Gabriela and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) picketed
the U.S. Embassy in Manila Nov. 5 to condemn the rape of a 22-year-old Filipina
in Subic, Zambales (138 kms. north of Manila) by six U.S. Marine servicemen on
Nov. 1. They demanded the pull-out of U.S. troops from the Philippines and
called on the government to take custody of the six servicemen. BY
ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO Members of the women’s
groups Gabriela and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) picketed the U.S. Embassy in
Manila Nov. 5 to condemn the rape of a 22-year-old Filipina in Subic, Zambales
(138 kms. north of Manila) by six U.S. Marine servicemen four days before. They
demanded the pull-out of U.S. troops from the Philippines and called on the
government to take custody of the six servicemen. The six suspects – Keith
Silkwood, Daniel Smith, Albert Lara, Dominic Duplantis, Corey Barris and Chad
Carpenter – have been participating in the past few months in the joint
Philippine-U.S. Balikatan military exercises in the former American naval base.
They are presently under the custody of the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Initial findings from Subic
police show that the victim, a college graduate from Zamboanga taking a vacation in Subic,
was at a karaoke bar Nov. 1 when she met the six suspects, who reportedly took
her with them into a rented van. An eyewitness saw her a few hours later being
dumped on the road, unconscious, only wearing panties, from a van. A medico-legal examination
confirmed the woman was raped. “When a Filipina is defiled
of her honor in her own country by a foreign military visitor, there should be
no doubt nor delay in assessing that this is an issue of particular importance
and national interest,” said Cristina Palabay, GWP secretary-general. “The
Philippine government should immediately get custody of the suspects and assume
full and decisive jurisdiction on the case.” “Why shouldn’t they be
paraded like those suspects they are wont to present in Malacańang every now and
then?” Palabay added. “This is clearly a heinous act and they should be
surfaced, arrested and kept in the custody of Philippine authorities, given no
special treatment, and prosecuted in our courts. We must at all times assert our
sovereignty in attaining full justice for a Filipino woman who has been
defiled.” “Junk VFA” Meanwhile, an ecumenical
women’s organization has also reacted to the rape by calling, among other
things, for the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). In a statement, the
Ecumenical Women’s Forum (EWF) condemned the rape as “another display of gross
disrespect, contempt and machismo” by visiting U.S. military forces. “The rape
of one woman is not a rape of only one woman, but a completely dishonorable
offense against the whole nation!” the EWF statement read. “It is an act of
terror against the people!” The EWF called for an
investigation of the case, and demanded the abrogation of the VFA. “It is not
enough that the criminal justice provisions of the VFA be applied
in this case,” the EWF statement read. “While the trial is going on, all US
troops must go and the VFA abrogated. There should never be a second round of
rape and abuse!” The VFA, an agreement that
grants extraterritorial and extrajudicial “rights” to US servicemen visiting the
Philippines for military “exercises,” was approved in 1999 by a Senate then
dominated by allies of former President Joseph Estrada. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,
who was then vice president, was among the proponents of the VFA. Three years
later, she would also approve the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA),
which allows U.S. troops to bring military equipment and supplies into the
country from any point. Both the VFA and the MLSA
have been opposed by cause-oriented groups and nationalists as affronts against
Philippine sovereignty. In one of his last columns before his death in 1999, the
nationalist historian and social critic Renato Constantino hit the VFA for
turning the country into a “huge military base.” U.S. servicemen stationed
in the Philippines, particularly during the times that the country hosted
American military bases, have been known to be involved in rapes and murders of
Filipinos. The suspects have invariably been able to escape Philippine justice
through the influence of the U.S. government. Arroyo “also
accountable” In a related development,
the Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria), a broad alliance of
artists calling for the ouster of Arroyo and the institutionalization of reforms
beyond a constitutional succession, assailed the President for her “deafening
silence” on the incident. Macapagal-Arroyo has not
issued a statement on the issue. In contrast, Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo
and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez have both gone on record as expressing
support for efforts at investigating and prosecuting the case. “The perpetrators of this
heinous crime shall be brought to justice,” said Romulo. Meanwhile, Gonzalez
said that the U.S. Embassy would have to present the suspects once a case is
filed against them in court. “While whether the two
Cabinet secretaries will live up to their seemingly bold statements still
remains to be seen and there is definitely a lot more that they could have
said,” the ARREST Gloria statement read, “it is disgusting that two underlings
have beaten President Arroyo to the draw in issuing statements on this crime by
foreigners against one of our own.” “President Arroyo, who
calls herself Ina ng Bayan (people’s mother) every chance she gets,
carries the biggest responsibility in this issue – having aggressively promoted
the Balikatan military exercises which brought the six rapists to this country
in the first place,” the ARREST Gloria statement further read. ARREST Gloria – whose
members include musicians Lourd de Veyra, Bobby Balingit, and Dong Abay, the
worker-based musical group Tambisan sa Sining, multi-media group Southern
Tagalog Exposure, and the poetry group Kilometer 64 among others – also took the
U.S. government to task for “abandoning” the Philippines during its “most trying
moments” despite expressed commitments to defending the Philippines militarily.
It cited the large-scale evacuation of U.S. troops from the Philippines just as
the Japanese Imperial Army had begun attacks in World War II, as well as the
U.S. government’s refusal to commit military aid to the Philippines in the 1990s
when its claim on the Kalayaan Reef of the Spratly Islands was under threat from
China – despite the existence of a Mutual Defense Treaty. “This is the kind of
President we now have in Malacańang – a President who chooses to uphold a
farcical RP-U.S. military alliance at the expense of the dignity of a fellow
Filipina – all while maintaining a presidency reacquired in the last election by
fraudulent means and driving the people into deeper and deeper penury by the
day,” the ARREST Gloria statement further read. “The country has no need for
this kind of President.” Bulatlat © 2005 Bulatlat
■
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Women’s Groups Picket
U.S. Embassy,
Demand U.S. Troops’ Pull-out from RP
Bulatlat