JEDDAH, 8 December 2006 — ALTHOUGH the conviction of US Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith on Monday afternoon by the Makati Regional Trial Court was fair in my opinion, because of the overwhelming amount of physical evidence collected and presented during the trial, I think the sentence of life imprisonment of up to 40 years was too harsh. The whole trial seemed to me to also be about the relationship between the once-colonized Filipinos and their ex-masters, the Americans.
The rape victim, named Nicole by the court to protect her dignity, admittedly did not fit the bill of being innocent and inexperienced. Instead she admitted to being friends with another US soldier, who subsequently invited Nicole and her sister to spend a weekend in Subic, Olongapo, with him last year. It was during that weekend that Nicole was raped by Smith in a van, with his three friends, Lance Corporals Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier, allegedly cheering him on.
Many commentators, myself included, initially cast doubt on the story of Nicole, saying that she willingly went to a bar with the soldiers, drank heavily with them, flirted and danced sexily with Smith. She even left the bar voluntarily with them, though she was extremely drunk. It was while she was in the van making out with Smith that their two stories diverge. Smith says that she wanted to have fun with him, and even helped him get to her private parts. She denies this, saying she struggled, said “No!” repeatedly and then passed out. When she awoke, she found herself abandoned on a roadside, her panties and jeans pulled down around her ankles.
Yet as a legal analyst on the ANC channel Monday morning said, “Even a prostitute can be raped.”
Nicole was examined by a doctor who found contusions and bruises in her vagina, indicating violent and non-consensual sex. This alone should have been good enough for conviction of Smith, especially since Nicole passed out from too much drink during the sex, and thus couldn’t have been able to give her consent or not.
The three acquitted friends of Smith have already been flown back to their US base in Okinawa, Japan, and now the Philippine and US governments have to decide under whose custody Smith will remain as he appeals his conviction. Under the 1992 Visiting Forces Agreement signed between the two countries after the Philippine Senate voted not to renew a treaty that allowed the US to maintain military bases in the Philippines, the US has the right to remain in custody of any US serviceman accused of a crime until all legal remedies are exhausted. Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Rafael Seguis admitted this on television Monday evening, erasing any doubts that may have remained in any one’s mind.
I don’t think Philippine-US relations will be adversely affected by this ruling. As former senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani said in a TV interview, the Philippines needed to set the boundaries and tell its superpower ally, the US, that it couldn’t cross those lines. Judge Benjamin Pozon did just that. I just pity the poor family of Smith, who must be having nightmares about what their son will be facing in the horribly overcrowded Philippine jails.
At 21 and baby-faced, Smith hardly looks like a rapist, which may explain why several Filipinos I know, including women, felt he should not have been convicted of rape and that Nicole had just invented the whole ordeal to get revenge on an American who had slighted her. Some even said they wouldn’t have minded being in Nicole’s place and that she should have been glad to have experienced an American, white guy.
I find that way of thinking ridiculous, but I can see how Filipinos who have been taught from birth to idolize everything American could end up having such insanely positive feelings toward white Americans, even ones that rape them. It is true that many Filipino women think that marrying a white man will immediately improve their lives and give them the chance to escape from poverty and a life of misery in the Philippines. The sad fact is that too many white men take advantage of this and treat Filipino women shabbily, acting as if they are their virtual slaves both in bed and out. I think this all stems from a fetishization of race and color by both sides, with the white males having the upper hand.
Another reader wrote to me and wondered what sort of family life Smith had while growing up. I wondered too and searched online to find any sort of reaction story from his family back in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch only carried small wire stories about his conviction and subsequent question of who would keep him in custody while he appealed his sentence. Finally, I found some information in the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes. It quoted one of Smith’s lawyers, Benjamin Formoso, as saying that Smith was in shock following the verdict and that “he was crying yesterday when he talked to his parents.” The paper also said that Smith had not seen his parents in over a year and that he didn’t want them to come to the Philippines because he felt bad.
It is unfortunate that radical leftist groups in the Philippines latched onto Nicole’s case and used her as the poster child of anti-Americanism in the Philippines. The US military is providing crucial training and support to the Philippine military in its fight against terrorist groups in Mindanao, such as the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Jemaah Islamiyah.
I just hope that in appealing his case, Smith will be able to get his sentence reduced. Spending 40 years in jail is too harsh a punishment for him.
Comments or questions? E-mail me at: [email protected]. Visit my blog at: http://rasheedsworld.blogspot.com.
