Nicole's dream

Rape is a private crime, and if the victim no longer wants to pursue her complaint, it should be none of our business.

Date rape can be particularly traumatic, because a victim initially trusts her rapist and may even be attracted to him. When such a woman is raped, she is tormented by the thought that she might have brought the crime upon herself.

That point will be brought up to destroy her credibility in case she decides to sue for rape. Every step in the seduction, every human frailty involved will be dug up and become part of public record, and the rape itself will be scrutinized in every excruciating detail. The aim is not just to establish guilt but also to spare the innocent if warranted.

In the case of “Nicole” and the people of the Philippines vs Daniel Smith, all the sordid details have been bared to the public, from Nicole’s love life in Zamboanga up to the moment she was dumped, wasted, with her underwear around her legs, on the sidewalk of the Subic pier by the 19-year-old US Marine lance corporal, who was rushing to return to his ship.

After all the details have been bared, the nation learned yesterday, in the middle of Women’s Month, that Nicole had unceremoniously fired her female lawyer, recanted her complaint, settled for P100,000 in moral and exemplary damages, and left for… hold your breath… the US of A, there to settle for good.

Women will be the first to tell you that rape is a private crime, and really, if Nicole says the court judgment on Smith was flawed and she prefers to settle, it should be none of our business.

But there were Filipinos, women and men alike, whose initial reaction to the news yesterday was a dismayed, “Oh no, Nicole!”

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There would be less of that dismay if Nicole had been left alone from the start to ponder the events of that fateful night and decide her course of action.

Aware of the circumstances that led up to sex in the back of a crowded van, Nicole initially showed reluctance to press charges.

Her five-page statement, made public yesterday, expressed uncertainty over details of her original complaint.

That complaint was given as militant women’s groups turned her into a symbol of the fight for women’s rights, and anti-US groups used her case to advance their cause.

Under tremendous pressure from all sides, the Makati Regional Trial Court met the one-year deadline, as stipulated in the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), to resolve the rape case, coming up with a ruling that was meant to please everyone: convict the principal accused, acquit the co-accused.

It was a half-baked decision that tossed the onus of final judgment to the higher courts. The Court of Appeals has been sitting on Smith’s appeal for ages, but then that is the normal pace of justice in this country. Perhaps the CA can now resolve the case faster after Nicole’s recantation, dated March 12, was submitted by Smith’s camp.

Because of that date, Nicole’s supporters should stop blaming her recantation on that conversation between President Arroyo and US President Barack Obama, reported only last Saturday on TV and the next day in newspapers, wherein Obama stressed the importance of the VFA and the Mutual Defense Treaty in bilateral relations.

It takes time to decide to issue such a recantation. It also takes time — and numerous requirements that a young, unmarried woman like Nicole does not have — to obtain an immigrant visa to the US. She needs that kind of visa if she truly intends to stay in that country for good, as her ex-lawyer said.

“My conscience continues to bother me realizing that I may have in fact been so friendly and intimate with Daniel Smith at the Neptune Club that he was led to believe that I was amenable to having sex or that we simply just got carried away,” Nicole’s latest statement declared. “I would rather risk public outrage than do nothing to help in ensuring that justice is served.”

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The case against Smith will continue. But can you send him to prison for life if his victim is no longer sure there was rape?

What should come out of this case is an honest-to-goodness review of the VFA, to clarify custody issues in criminal cases and to correct lopsided provisions.

There would be less public opprobrium if Nicole had migrated to any country except the United States. But it’s her life, and at this point the best that the public can do is respect her decision and wish her good luck.

There are also those who will understand her decision — those whose biggest dream is to leave their own country and stay away for good, by hook or by crook, through employment or marriage to a foreigner, or by becoming a “TNT” (tago nang tago) or illegal alien.

Nicole is living the Filipino dream — her original one, it seems, before all hell broke loose in Subic. In the hierarchy of dreams, going “stateside” tops them all.

And it looks like she didn’t even have to line up for her US visa.