Collateral Damage
The Jennifer Laude Case vis-à-vis the Visiting Forces Agreement
by Joleen Aira Restero Estella, Loisirc Macalintal Go, and Amanda Erika Miteria Lim
She was found with a blanket covering her naked, lifeless form — neck bent; head hovered down the toilet. Asphyxiation by drowning was the identified cause of her death — the perpetrator used its superior strength and choked the victim out of her life.
Justice Delayed
The murder of Jennifer Laude involving US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton has been sensationalized by the mainstream media as a “crime of hate,” given that Laude is a transgender. Furthermore, the media has repeatedly talked about Jennifer Laude as a sex worker who concealed her identity as female which leads to a conclusion that justifies her death. However, these generalizations by the transphobic society is deceptive as much as it is discriminating. From the 2013 update of transgender murders reported, a constant rise in murder rates was discerned from the 217 cases recorded in 2009 to 267 cases recorded in 2012. In the Philippines, there have been four recorded transsexual murders from 2012–2014. These severe conditions is accompanied by the lack of laws passed that eradicates discrimination against transexuals.
It is indeed important to note that the death of Laude shows the vulnerable position of transgenders in the Philippines; however, the case must be viewed on a greater scale so as not to be diverted from another issue at hand — the inability of the government to hold the perpetrators and the Visiting Forces Agreement itself accountable for its crimes and human rights violations against the Filipino people for the past years of its existence.
“The custody of any United States personnel over whom the Philippines is to exercise jurisdiction shall immediately reside with United States military authorities… In the event Philippine judicial proceedings are not completed within one year, the United States shall be relieved of any obligations…” — VFA, Article V: Criminal Jurisdiction, Paragraph 6
The provision stated above shows the leaning of the VFA in favor of the perpetrators. Along with the inefficiency of investigative and judicial proceedings, it clearly shows how indemnity is given to the United States forces. This then creates a vicious cycle which dictates that the perpetrators can do the same offenses over and over again without being held accountable, and victims never achieve justice.
Moreover, despite being charged for murder, Pemberton’s custody is still with the United States. This is despite the provision of the Visiting Forces Agreement that the Philippines can demand custody of a service member involved in a crime. The contrary was done as the Aquino administration only needed a single request from the U.S to hand over the custody of Pemberton. With the government’s lack of political will and the continuous discrimination against the marginalized minority, it is nothing but impossible for justice to be served within the framework of the lopsided VFA.
Justice Denied
The Visiting Forces Agreement is a pact between the United States and the Philippine government for US troops’ periodic “visits” and military exercises in the Philippines which gives “special treatment” to the foreign soldiers. On Article III of the said agreement it is said that “. . . The Government of the Philippines shall facilitate the admission of United States personnel and their departure from the Philippines in connection with activities covered by this agreement.”
Since the approval of the VFA in 1998 and its ratification in 1999, several human rights violations have been reported implicating US military personnel as perpetrators. Some of these include the Subic rape case involving Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith in 2005, the mysterious death of a Filipino translator in an American camp in Mindanao in 2010, and the most recent case under investigation, the murder of Jennifer Laude.
As the country experiences the intensified implications of its ties with the United States, an administration willing to sell its sovereignty must be resisted. As said by Professor Roland Simbulan of the JUNK VFA Movement, what the government does “. . . is an about-face from the position taken by Aquino as a senator — he’s reneging on the resolution he signed calling for a review of the VFA, and, if the US ignored that, to have the VFA abrogated.” Clearly, the progressive stand of the president was only to widen his electoral base and now that he is in power, service is to his real bosses — the foreign and the elite interests.
Only the termination of the VFA will pry the Filipinos away from the shackles of the US military abuses. The Jennifer Laude case is not the first of the many heinous crimes that the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the United States has incurred to the Filipino people. Masked under the virtue of military defense collaboration, the said agreement has perpetuated the uneven relationship between the former colony and its colonizer — one that is exploitative to the former and favorable to the latter.
As administrations fail to recognize and address the faults of the ties between the two nations, history will keep on recording these exploitations which do not only lie on the bastardization of laws and damaging of natural resources; it directly poses danger to the vulnerable groups of the Philippine society and continuously puts the lives of every Filipino at the risk of its rights being violated and its life being the collateral damage.
This article was first published in The Manila Collegian Vol. 28 Issue №6, November 27, 2014.
