Early release order for Pemberton for 'conduct' stirs up strong criticism
MANILA, Philippines — Progressive groups on Thursday voiced strong criticism for an Olongapo court’s order for the early release of US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton, who killed transgender woman Jennifer Laude in 2014, saying the decision is unfair to poor Filipino convicts deprived of the same privilege.
Members of LGBT organization BAHAGHARI and other youth groups trooped to the Department of Justice on Thursday morning to denounce the order to release Pemberton six years from his conviction.
The National Union of Peoples Lawyers for its part said that while they acknowledge reformative or rehabilitative measures for convicts, “these should be equitably applied to all deserving and truly remorseful.”
In Pemberton's case, the court held that he earned 1,548 days of time allowances for his good conduct counted from his preventive imprisonment until August 2020. Taken together with his 2,142 days in prison, he would have served 10 years, one month and one day—or more than his 10-year sentence.
READ: Pemberton's early release for good conduct raises questions from Laude family
Romel Bagares, the Laude family’s lawyer, argued that the GCTA law does not apply to the Pemberton case since he is covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement, which is a treaty and a different modality.
The Philippines' decision in February to scrap the VFA was put on hold for six months from June "upon the president’s instruction."
NUPL said they cannot accept that a foreign serviceman given special treatment and privileges for a “monstrous crime” will walk free “by virtue of contrived ‘good conduct’ while isolated and sheltered from the native hoi polloi.”
"What makes it even more atrocious is that his entitlements and liberty were apparently politically bartered through an onerous and servile military agreement," the lawyers group said.
NUPL did not offer proof to support the allegation.
Meanwhile, the group said, political prisoners are still waiting for the resolution of their petition seeking release citing the COVID-19 pandemic and cramped jail spaces in the country.
"What takes the cake is that many other helpless and hapless yet deserving persons deprived of liberty are made to wait what could be Godot which may never come by authorities who vaccilate and drag their feet perhaps because they just have eyes only for wards of foreign masters who are given the red carpet to walk away from ignominy," it added.
In an August 2019 Philstar.com report, NUPL president Edre Olalia explained that prisoners, “that are not dregs of society like [convicted murderer and rapist Antonio Sanchez]” may benefit from the GCTA law.
“"[P]oor criminals found guilty because [they were] not competently represented by counsel or those innocent but framed up for political reasons or by corrupt police" could also benefit, Olalia said, but he urged a more “holistic” framework in the GCTA law such as considering remorsefulness and willingness to ask forgiveness from the victim, and the impact of early reelase on the victims, on society and on people’s faith in the justice system.
READ: Good law, bad man: RA 10592 and rape-slay convict Antonio Sanchez
Meanwhile, rights group Karapatan decried the impending release of Pemberton as a “travesty of justice in the Philippines and as a most recent vivid example of the lopsidedness towards US interests of the US-PH [VFA].”
“This action will go down in the annals of Philippine history as among the most notorious proof that the US continues to trump Philippine sovereignty to this day, under the regime of Rodrigo Duterte, who continues to remain subservient to US interests, contrary to his posturing,” the group added.
In January this year, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to terminate the VFA — a call that progressive groups have been making for decades, including over Laude’s death — over the cancelled US visa of Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa.
RELATED: Beyond Bato's US visa: A look at issues previously raised against VFA
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