Who in their right mind would go all the way and chase the American soldier in Zambales only accompanied by another girl-companion? I have been to Subic several times and I observed the presence of so many hookers on the lookout for foreigners in the area to the point that everytime the gang goes there, we would just chill out at the yacht club instead of going to Boardwalk where these hookers frequent alot (especially Pier 1). Okay, that does not make Nicole and co. hookers. But getting drunk in the company of people you barely know, you are so either inviting trouble or you are just actually planning to have sex with anyone of them. Pardon my being blunt, but Nicole drank alot of alcohol that night when she could have stayed sober. Bad judgement? I dont think so. I think she intended it. I mean she went all the way to party with these guys, what could she have had in mind. Come on, suddenly she began being such a "victim" on TV? Me smells a blackmail.
Feminist militant groups were all too eager to lap up her story, sadly, before the merits of the case were decided by the courts, the accused already lost the battle in media. That's the most unfair part in rape cases where the accused are almost always prejudged. Who cares if the girl was altogether lying? The case being a test of the Visiting Forces Agreement, everyone is too careful about the implications of a guilty or not guilty verdict. With the elections coming around next year, trust some local politicians will suddenly be part of this circus.
Last night on the news, Nicole and her mom walked out of the court hearings alleging that the state prosecutors were incompetent and wants to have a new set of state prosecutors assigned to them. What can I say? Even the foremost feminist lawyer Katrina Legarda backed out on her. I think she needs to pull a new stunt to make her newsworthy again. My God, how powerful is the vagina!
ReplyDeleteOne of the people who examined Nicole told reporters on TV last night that the bruises that she had on her private parts is not consistent with the bruises commonly found in rape victims and the bruises could have been incurred through consensual sex.
ReplyDeleteTsk! Tsk! The truth no matter how you hide it always come out.
‘I saw Nicole sitting on Smith’s lap,’ says Marine sergeant
ReplyDeleteClaims he did not notice goings on in van
By Veronica Uy
INQ7.net
Last updated 06:52pm (Mla time) 09/19/2006
(UPDATE) “I SAW (Lance Corporal Daniel) Smith with a Filipina girl sitting on his lap...they were aggressively flirtatious with each other” and thought she was a “professional preying on the vulnerability of Smith.”
This was the testimony of Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier, the most senior US Marine charged in the Subic rape case, as he took the witness stand on Tuesday to give his version of what happened the night of November 1 last year inside the Subic free port.
Carpentier said he had entered the Neptune Club in search of members of his platoon, especially the younger troops who had a midnight curfew, and saw the complainant, publicly known as Nicole, sitting on the lap of Smith, the principal accused.
But apart from this, Carpentier made no other reference to Nicole.
Carpentier claimed that, once onboard the van in which the alleged rape took place, he did not pay attention to what was happening because he was looking out for two more of his men -- Corporal Cory Burris and Lance Corporal Albert Lara -- who had gone out of the Neptune Club to get pizza, against his orders for them to return to their ship.
On questioning by his lawyer Francisco Rodrigo, Carpentier admitted signing a waiver during his interrogation by agents of the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS).
In the NCIS report, Carpentier was identified as the one who told Smith “to bring the girl along.”
He said he believed Nicole felt “ashamed and embarrassed by her conduct that evening, that there were casual observers,” which prompted her to file the case against himself, Smith and Lance Corporals Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis.
Although he said his curfew was 2 a.m., he did not help Nicole after dropping off the other Marines near their ship around midnight the day of the alleged rape because, even if she was in a state of undress, her actions that night were not those of a “self-respecting woman.”
On cross examination by public prosecutor Elizabeth Berdan, Carpentier maintained he did not believe “something remotely evil” was happening at the back of the van but added he assumed there had been sex because the “Filipina woman was hanging all over Smith, kissing, fondling, and groping him in a public place.”
He said Nicole was “fully coherent and in control of her faculties that night and was not physically removed from the van.”
This was in complete contrast to earlier testimonies that Nicole had been carried out of the van “like a pig.”
On the reports of NCIS agents Guy Papgeorge and Bruce Warshawsky, Carpentier said both were “loosely based on my statements.”
However, Carpentier said that contrary to Papageorge's report, he did not have beers, “but a couple of drinks.” When asked what these were, he said he had “approximately three six- to eight-ounce glasses of vodka and orange juice.”
He denied being intoxicated, although the NCIS report quoted him as saying, “I was drunk myself.”
“That was not a direct quote,” he told the court
Berdan was also able to point out discrepancies in Carpentier’s testimony, his counter-affidavit, and his statements to the NCIS regarding Burris and Lara.
In his testimony to the court, the Marine sergeant said he did not invite the two to ride with them in the van; in his counter-affidavit he said he offered them a ride but they refused; and in his statement to the NCIS he said they climbed into the van.
good blog!!! I to believed that Dan is wrongly accused...Well done..
ReplyDeleteUPDATE- UPDATE-UPDATE
ReplyDeleteTHE WHORE HAD BEEN UNMASKED!
NICOLE - SHAME OF FILIPINAS. TAKE THAT GABRIELA!
'Nicole' leaves for US, settles for P100,000
By Michael Punongbayan Updated March 18, 2009 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Saying she was bothered by her conscience and she wanted justice served, the woman who said she was raped in the back of a van in Subic by a US Marine has recanted her statement.
“Nicole” has accepted P100,000 in moral and exemplary damages from Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith and has left the country to stay in the United States “for good,” according to her former lawyer.
Her statement has been submitted by Smith’s lawyers to the Court of Appeals, where his appeal of his conviction awaits decision. The criminal aspect of the case can still be pursued.
Lawyer Evalyn Ursua, talking to reporters, confirmed that she had been fired by Nicole and that her former client was now in the US.
“Yesterday (March 16), at about 5:30 in the afternoon, Nicole’s mother personally handed me a letter addressed to me, purportedly from Nicole. The letter is brief. It reads that it serves as Nicole’s notice of termination of my services as her counsel in the criminal case against Daniel Smith and all other cases arising from or related to it which are pending before the Court of Appeals (CA) and the Supreme Court,” Ursua said.
She said Nicole expressed gratitude for the time and effort she dedicated to Smith’s prosecution which resulted in the latter’s conviction in December 2006 before the Makati City regional trial court (RTC).
Nicole’s mother told Ursua that her daughter “had left for the US last week for good,” adding that the decision to terminate her services as counsel stems from their “loss of confidence” in the country’s justice system.
The lawyer said she is respecting Nicole’s decision but expressed her desire to continue fighting for her “as a citizen who loves this country.”
Smith’s counsel, lawyer Jose Justiniano, in a two-page manifestation with the 12th division of the Court of Appeals that is hearing the appeal, said his client has satisfied the civil aspect of his conviction and has indemnified the victim.
The counsel submitted to the appellate court the receipt and release signed by the victim as proof of payment of damages.
Justiniano said Nicole also terminated the services of her lawyer on the same day she accepted the payment for damages from the camp of Smith before she reportedly flew to the US.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, for his part, said he believes Nicole’s decision to go to the US would not affect the conviction of Smith.
He denied that the government had a hand in facilitating Nicole’s visa to the US, recalling that the rape victim had asked the government’s help in securing a visa to Italy where her brother is reportedly staying.
“I did not help. Hands off. That’s a very taxing issue. That’s a sensitive case for a lot of people, especially the activists and the ultra-nationalists,” he said.
But Gonzalez commented that the decision of Nicole to go to the US showed that “her supposed path of hatred (against the US) expressed before was not very genuine.”
“If she just went to Italy maybe that would be more illustrative of her feelings against the US, but she did not go to Italy, she went to the US,” he said.
“You should remember that there was a time when she wanted to remove some meaty portions in her affidavit, indicating that she may have been in doubt of the so-called rape, in doubt about the truth that she was raped,” Gonzalez said.
No legal implication
The justice secretary reiterated that this latest development “will not disturb the decision (convicting Smith) anymore.”
“We don’t compromise a decision that is final,” he said.
The DOJ chief said that interpreting a Supreme Court ruling requiring Smith’s detention in a pla
US Marine in Subic rape case acquitted
ReplyDelete‘Romantic episode,’ not rape, says CA
By Dona Pazzibugan, Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net, Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 16:41:00 04/23/2009
MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE 3) The Court of Appeals has acquitted an American marine of raping a Filipina, saying the soldier and his accuser shared a “spontaneous, unplanned romantic episode.”
In a 71-page decision, the appellate court said Lance Corporal Daniel Smith and the victim, identified in court only as Nicole, were both intoxicated after a night out and were “carried away by their passions.”
The court also said Nicole flirted with Smith and led him on with “reckless abandon” and that there was “no evidence” that she was forced into sex.
Smith has been ordered “released immediately unless held for other lawful cause,” read the decision penned by Associate Justice Monina Arevalo-Zenarosa of the CA’s special 11th division.
“What we see was the unfolding of a spontaneous, unplanned romantic episode with both parties carried away by their passions and stirred up by the urgency of the moment caused probably by alcoholic drinks they took, only to be rudely interrupted when the van suddenly stopped to pick up some passengers,” the court said.
During the marathon trial in 2006, Nicole claimed that Smith raped her at the back of a van in the evening of November 1, 2005, while three other US servicemen, cheered him on.
Nicole recanted the allegations in an affidavit dated March 8, saying she was too drunk to recall what happened. The court said the recantation was not considered in its decision to acquit Smith.
“Suddenly the moment of parting came and the marines had to rush to the ship. In that situation, reality dawned on Nicole – what her audacity and reckless abandon, flirting with Smith and leading him on, brought upon her,” the court said.
“That must have been shattering, but added to this was the mocking moments she heard from inside the van; ‘leave that bitch!’ or words to that effect-which really broke her as she shouted back in denial: I am not a bitch,” it said.
The court said: “No evidence was introduced to show force, threat and intimidation applied by the accused upon Nicole even as prosecution vainly tried to highlight her supposed intoxication and alleged unconsciousness at the time of the sexual act.”
The appellate court division was comprised of three women associate justices: Remedios Fernando, chairman of the Special Eleventh Division; Myrna Dimaranan-Vidal and Arevalo-Zenarosa who penned the decision.
Smith is detained at the US embassy in Manila. His acquittal, two years after his conviction at the Makati regional trial court, removes an irritant in the implementation of the Philippine-US Visiting Forces Agreement, months after US President Barack Obama called up President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to emphasize the importance of the VFA in the two countries’ relations.
The VFA came under fire for its alleged lopsided provisions when the Philippine government surrendered custody of Smith to the US embassy even after his conviction, based on a provision in the VFA, which stated that the US embassy would retain custody of American servicemen pending all legal proceedings on any offenses they might have committed.
The Makati regional trial court had sentenced Smith to reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment.
The court had acquitted three of Smith’s co-accused – Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier and Lance Corporals Keith Silkwood and Dominique Duplantis.