This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 7, March 19-25, 2006
Women’s Woes and the Rape
of ‘Nicole’
Evalyn Ursua, lawyer for Subic rape case victim Nicole (not her real name), said
that the case is special because the accused are U.S. marines. While being the
most controversial and talked-about case, it is just one of the increasing
number of violence against women (VAW) cases reported in 2005.
By Eli Manalansan
There is no justice unless the government
asserts custody of four accused Unites States marines, said Evalyn Ursua, lawyer
for the Subic rape victim.
The victim's lawyer in the celebrated Subic rape
case will insist on the arrest and imprisonment in a Philippine jail of the four
accused U.S. marines.
“We should get custody over the accused since
that is the rule under our own law notwithstanding a one-sided executive
agreement that is being used as an excuse by those charged (of rape),” said
Ursua in an interview with Bulatlat.
Ursua explained that the 1997 Anti-Rape law
explicitly orders the incarceration of accused rapists, even while the case is
being heard, and despite the U.S.-RP Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which has
impeded the serving of warrants of arrest against the suspects.
“Legal questions have been hurled whether we
should honor the VFA, which allows the U.S. government to take custody of its
military personnel criminally charged in the Philippines. I don't think we
should,” said Ursua.
“Otherwise, we might not have justice at all,”
she added.
Ursua is convinced that based on evidences
gathered and the revised law on rape, there is sufficient basis to merit a
conviction of the four accused. She said the law sufficiently defines the
elements of the crime of rape and that all these elements are present in the
case against the four Americans criminally charged of raping ‘Nicole’ (an
assumed name given by a feminist journalist).
But the law will be meaningless, she warns, if
the custody of the accused remains beyond the control of the Philippine
government, adding there is so much uncertainty in the case as a result.
Special and anomalous
Ursua, a well-known feminist lawyer who has
already handled several rape cases, found the Subic rape case special. She said
because of the VFA, a “foreign element” has been added, which is not present in
other rape cases. But because of this, she also found the special circumstances
behind the rape of ‘Nicole’ “anomalous.”
“Normally, what the court would do is to order
the serving of the warrant of arrest, bring the accused to jail and for the
jailer to report to the court. In this case, that has not been done, and that is
anomalous,” said Ursua.
“We should not be allowing this to happen. This
is our court and our courts should be able to enforce our law. Rape is rape,
regardless of any special circumstance,” she stressed.
The arraignment of the four U.S. marines was set
on March 24 by Judge Renato Dilag of the Olongapo Regional Trial Court.
The alleged rape of ‘Nicole’ that happened Nov.
1 last year is the most controversial and talked-about case in the list of
continuing crimes of violence against women (VAW) documented by the Philippine
National Police (PNP). The PNP tallied a total of 1,121 rape cases in 2005.
Rape, VAW continues
Using the PNP data, the Center for Women’s
Resources (CWR) concluded that there is one woman being raped every hour, being
physically battered every three hours, and sexually harassed every 12 hours.
Compared to PNP statistics in 2004, reported VAW
incidents in 2005 slightly dipped. An article, which appeared in the Philippine
Daily Inquirer Nov. 29, 2005 attributed this to the tendency of victims to keep
silent. The article also stated that the dip in cases reported may also be an
indication of the public’s lack of confidence in the country’s justice and law
enforcement system, especially with regards VAW cases. According to a CWR
survey, most VAW victims prefer to report to friends and women’s institutions
rather than undergo “gender-insensitive” interrogation by the police.
A total of 5,374 VAW cases happened in 2005, 96
percent of which occurred during the first nine months of the year. More than 20
percent of these were rape cases, which ranks next to wife battering and
physical abuse in terms of the most number of cases.
This is despite a policy environment generally
not lacking in tools to protect women and children.
Despite pro-women laws
Ironic as it may seem, CWR studies revealed that
VAW incidents rose after the passage of Republic Act (R.A.) 9262 or the
Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act last March 8, 2004.
For the first time, battered women and abused
children are provided with a venue to sue and seek protection from abusive and
violent husbands or male partners, parents or guardians.
CWR documented 218 victims of VAW when the law
took into effect. But this number jumped to 924 in 2005 even as cases of wife
battering and physical injuries reported to the PNP dropped from 3,553 to 2,335.
Sexual harassment victims that sought the help
of Gabriela, a women’s group, increased to 34 in 2005 from 14 in 2004. The PNP
report, however, indicated a decrease in the number of incidents of sexual
harassment and acts of lasciviousness from 633 in 2004 to 573 in 2005.
Nevertheless, women continue to be victims of
sexual harassment with more cases unreported. This is simply because there is
still no government agency monitoring the implementation of R.A. 7877 or the
Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, 11 years after the law took into effect on March 5,
1995. Moreover, the law confines its implementation in places of work and
learning or educational institutions.
Also, sexual offenders are not significantly
deterred with some convicted sexual harassers even getting light penalties
compared to those provided by law.
R.A. 7877 penalizes a convicted sexual harasser
with imprisonment from one to six months or a fine of P10,000 to P20,000, or
both. This penalty is lower than the maximum six years imprisonment meted to a
guilty party in an act of lasciviousness case.
Meanwhile, despite R.A. 9207 or the
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, 155 Filipina victims of sex trafficking
sought refuge at the Department of Social Work and Development last year.
Despite laws protecting women and children, a
wide gap separates declared policies to what is actually happening to women and
other vulnerable sectors in the country.
Regressing
“We have gained so much in terms of policies,
but in terms of application and the actual conditions of women, we are not only
lacking but regressing,” declared Ursua when asked to assess the conditions of
women vis-à-vis policies protecting women’s rights.
“The system is still so caught up with a culture
that is so violent against women and, in general, women’s issues are still
trivialized,” Ursua said. She said human rights violations against women
continue and have worsened alongside the general political and social crisis in
the Philippines.
For the lawyer who has taken it upon herself to
seek justice for ‘Nicole’, pursuing the American marines charged of rape is just
another battle to challenge a system that continues to violently trample on the
rights of women, in particular, and the Filipino people, in general. Bulatlat © 2006 Bulatlat
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