The tangled tale of the Subic ‘rape’ victim gets untangled

Let’s face it. Our newspaper got nakuryente by a government source who maliciously, what other word will suffice, planted the false story that the 22-year old Zamboanga girl who’s accusing the US Marines of rape was a "no-show" and that she was wavering, perhaps ready to withdraw her case.

She will definitely not withdraw. This I got yesterday from my own lawyer, Rogelio A. Vinluan of ACCRALAW, who’s the victim’s counsel, aside from Atty. Katrina Legarda (also a former lawyer of ours in the Cory libel case versus the late Louie Beltran and this Publisher). Katrina, who’s been appearing on television and in the newspapers, is representing the aggrieved victim in her capacity as head of the Child Justice League, Inc., at the request of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the government itself, while Rolly Vinluan is counsel representing the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), not his law firm.

It’s definitely untrue that the victim was a no-show. Wednesday morning (Nov. 23), she went to office of Subic Prosecutor Raymond Viray accompanied by DSWD representatives, ready to sign an Affidavit against the six accused US Marines. For some strange reason, though, she was not accompanied by any of her lawyers.

In any event, Prosecutor Viray allegedly told her that there was no need to swear to another statement or sign any Affidavit, since her statement had already been entered in the earlier police inquiry. Anyway, that’s what this writer was told yesterday.

Is this true? Then why all the B.S. about her being a no-show?

What we hear from other sources is that the Department of Justice "hinted" that she ought to go directly to the office of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez in Manila to file her sworn statement with him – but the girl had been advised that a battery of photographers, TV cameramen and journalists, might be waiting to "ambush" her in the Justice building.

In any event, all will be clarified, hopefully, on Tuesday next week (November 29th) when a hearing will be held in the office of Olongapo City Prosecutor Prudencio Jalandoni at which the six accused US Marines will also appear to swear to and file their Counter-Affidavits. The US Embassy has pledged to bring the Marines (now in detention under American custody in Manila) to the hearing.

Incidentally, Vinluan is being assisted by a legal team composed of two lady lawyers, last year’s Bar Topnotcher January Sanchez (UP 2004) and Zoraida Andam, a former Binibining Pilipinas, also from UP.

By way of interest, the accused American Marines are being represented, as well, by a group of brilliant lawyers from several law firms, e.g. SyCip Salazar, Rabe, (King) Rodrigo, Formoso & Formoso, etc. It’s a coincidence that the alleged victim’s lawyers are all from UP Law, while those representing the US Marines happen to be from the Ateneo College of Law, i.e. Atenistas. This is surely not a UP-Ateneo fight. It’s not basketball, or sports, but a serious matter of justice.

When all is said and done, why on earth should rumors be circulated that the victim is withdrawing her case, although every step is being taken to shield her identity up to the last possible minute? (Frankly, from our Zamboanga sources, we already know her name, but we’ll wait for her and her counsels to reveal it according to their own timetable).

From those who witnessed how the woman was unceremoniously dumped from the "suspected" van, unconscious, and in humiliating fashion, she and her family appear to have reason to be angry.

What’s disquieting, on the other hand, is why, when the "victim" was brought to the James Gordon Memorial Hospital, and reported to have suffered contusions and other "evidence" of molestation, no photographs were taken of her alleged injuries and other medico-legal evidence gathered. Will the prosecution thereby have to rely on the verbal testimony of the doctors and nurses who attended to the patient who had been rushed to their hospital by concerned Subic individuals and witnesses?

Or is there evidence existing which will be sprung only during the formal inquiry?

Are squid tactics being employed in this case?

There’s too much smoke being blown in everybody’s face in this over-hyped case, too many spurious leaks being fielded, and too much melodrama injected (along with radical Leftist propaganda).

They’ll hate me for making the observation, but I’ve got to do it in all honesty. It’s too pa-cute for several of the victim’s lady lawyers to have appeared at the preliminary investigation of the alleged gang-rape all dressed in black, parang nakaluksa, possibly trying to appear like "The Women in Black". (Great shades those male Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith).

Alas, those ladies, otherwise attractive only contrived to make themselves look more like the Witches of Endor.

* * *

Last Wednesday was a hectic day, if I might sound personal, for this writer, too. Aside from our Shrine Board meeting in the Polo Club, I had to go, briefly, to the Peninsula Hotel to greet our friend, Ambassador Dinh Tich of Vietnam (he was the one who arranged, among others, for my cordial meeting in January 2003, in the General’s own home in Hanoi, with the legendary Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the conqueror of the French in Dien Bien Phu, and the military genius who orchestrated the 1968 "Tet" offensive in South Vietnam against the ARVN South Vietnamese forces and the US and allies (including our Philcag in Tay Ninh). At the same forum on Exploring New Business and Trade Opportunities in Vietnam, I had to also greet a friend of even longer standing, Ruy Moreno, who ought to be better recognized as almost the leading authority on Vietnam in our country.

I first met Ruy in Saigon when his late father, one of our most outstanding diplomats, Ambassador Luis Moreno Salcedo was our envoy to Saigon. Ruy "escaped" death when his room in his dad’s Embassy residence was satchel-bombed by Viet Cong motorcycle riders during the 1968 "Tet" battle – because Ruy happened to be in Manila at the time. Ambassador Moreno Salcedo and Ruy’s mother, who were in the residence during the attack, were the ones shell-shocked. In any event, Ruy spent many more years in Vietnam – several of them in postwar Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) as SGV representative.

I apologize for not having had the time to attend their lectures and participate in the rest of the forum.

* * *

Following those appointments, I managed to get to a one-on-one late lunch in the Makati Shangri-la lobby lounge with Ambassador Gregoire Vardakis of Belgium. If you’ll notice from his non-Waloon-or-Flemish sounding name, although born and raised in Brussels, he is partly of Greek ancestry. (In fact, if you go to the island of Crete, you’ll find one of the heroes of the Cretan war of independence from the rule of the Ottoman Turks is a general named Vardakis, probably a relative of the clan).

Ambassador Vardakis, who holds a Licencie en Interpretariat from the I.S.T. in Brussels and took up Linguistics in Oxford University has enjoyed a number of fascinating postings since he joined the Foreign Service in 1981.

From 1983 to 1987, he served in New Delhi (India); then Jakarta (Indonesia) from 1987 to 1989. He was next posted to Dakar in Africa (1989-92), then went to Vienna (Austria) as Deputy Representative to the Conferences on CSBM in 1992-94. After a four-year stint in the Foreign Ministry in Brussels, he was named Ambassador to Abidjan (September 1994-August 2000), then Ambassador to Kuwait (September 2000 to January 2003). He arrived in Manila last October 17 for his current posting as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

We had such an entertaining discussion that we both walked off without paying the bill – what an embarrassment, since my STAR photographer, Mike Amoroso, caught up with me at the door of the hotel lobby, with a worried waitress in tow who politely asked me to "sign" the bill.

I took out my BANKARD "Visa" and handed it over to her. But here’s the rub: my credit card was returned "rejected"! How could this have happened? I writhed in further embarrassment. As a longtime BANKARD holder (some years ago, I had even been named BANKARD client of the year!) I had just received that gold Visa card renewing my membership under the title of "The New Bankard Experience." It was a new bad experience alright. The card was stamped valid from "11/05 and valid thru 11/07." Gee whiz. Doesn’t that mean November 2007? The "new card" had been delivered to The Philippine STAR, pasted to a letter carrying the printed advisory in huge capital letters: "NO NEED TO CALL FOR ACTIVATION."

Sanamagan. The Visa Gold BANKARD humiliated me instead – my already tattered repute was de-activated. Shamefacedly, I took out my wallet and paid in cash. Good old devalued pesos are still effective legal tender, even if the recent Bangko Sentral banknotes misspelled the name of Gloria Macapagal-Arrovo.

I submit, however, that our credit card companies ought to have more respect for their clients. To be candid, it’s not only BANKARD which has embarrassed this old fellow, yours truly –other cards to which I have given hundreds of thousands of pesos and dollars, and even millions of pesos worth of business have "rejected" me here and abroad. (Yet I see the agents of these same card companies pathetically trying to shove card memberships to students and other young people, without checking their credit references, in the Glorietta, Megamall, and other shopping malls. I’m all for giving credit to the general population, but don’t you think the big payers also deserve respect and consideration?)

A repeat "offender" is CITIBANK Gold Mastercard. This card recently got me "rejected" in Paris – the other year, I believe, in London. (Yet one of my substantial bank accounts is in Citibank itself). My payment record has been excellent, 100 percent, over the years. But does this firm value it? When I was in Beijing last week, on Thursday November 17, I received a strange cellphone call from CITIBANK Gold Mastercard. The lady caller informed me that I had exceeded my limit. At least this was a warning that any further transaction would be "rejected."

I asked her: "Where’s the Statement of Account so I can pay it immediately? The caller sounded "surprised" that I hadn’t received it. I said I was returning from Beijing the next day, Friday, so fax the bill to my private office, giving her the Facsimile number. I didn’t get the faxed Statement of Account until the following Tuesday.

At least, someone had rung me up. Mostly, I find myself talking to a call center, or – salamabit – arguing with a computer!

As guest speaker of the 5th General Membership Meeting of the Bankers Institute of the Philippines, Inc. (BAIPhil) last Tuesday – that was a wonderfully receptive audience I had in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel ballroom – I had already proposed to the organization’s President, Vice-President Amelia S. Amparado, past President Carmelita "Marites" Araneta, SVP of Metro Bank & Trust Company, Past President Ricardo P. Lirio (former Managing Director of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) and the other bank officers present, that they should instruct the credit card affiliates of all our banks to be more helpful and courteous to their clients – particularly their largest customers whom they treat so callously. The time may come when we’ll all go back to cash – and the heck with those pieces of plastic.

It’s a sign of the times. In this IT obsessed cyber-age, the human factor is being replaced by cynical disregard, and serious lack of governance in which materialistic CEOs feel it’s kosher to rip everybody off, including their own stockholders. But that’s the subject of another indignant column.