Teresita Ang See deplores RP mendicancy in Subic rape trial

From the Tribune:

Even during the trial of the controversial Subic rape case, the Philippines’ despicable, if not abominable, mendicant policy toward the United States (US) reared its ugly head, a Filipino-Chinese civic leader said over the weekend.

Teresita Ang-See, founding president of Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran, yesterday said she saw this for herself when she attended some of the hearings at the Makati City Regional Trial Court last week.

“The accused are trained Marines who employed brute force and dared abused Filipinos because they know that with the country’s mendicant foreign policy, the crime may draw a political rather than a judicial decision. Even Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez already showed bias in favor of the Marines early on in the case,” Ang-See said in her column in the Chinese- Filipino digest Tulay.

She cited the case of a female government lawyer assigned to the four accused whom she saw laughing with them, especially during that part of the trial when the complainant was sobbing while testifying.

In contrast, Ang-See said top US officials apologized for the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and the killing of her family.

The officials who offered the apology at the time acknowledged that what the four US soldiers in Iraq had done to the Iraqi woman “injured the Iraqi people as a whole.”

“Are we Filipinos such wimps? I hope not!” she said.

Ang-See drew attention during that particular trial last week when she stood up and lectured the accused on proper conduct in court.

“It is the height of insensitivity and callousness to make Nicole’s pain a laughing matter. That was why I couldn’t stop reacting after I saw Smith and Duplantis laughing with their Filipina assistant private counsel,” she said.

She recalled that when she stood up after Judge Benjamin Pozon left the court, she saw Daniel Smith and Dominic Duplantis discussing something with their Filipina assistant private counsel and laughing.

Ang-See, within hearing of the accused’s Filipino security detail, said “Aba, may gana pang magtawa ang mga gago (So these jerks have the nerve to laugh)!”

She added she was even more dismayed when the security personnel stood up and instead of admonishing the two accused ignored Ang-See’s comments.

This prompted the two suspects to continue their “joyful conversation” amid of the complainant’s painful sobbing.

“I couldn’t stand it and told the US Embassy personnel, ‘Can you tell those two guys to stop laughing?’ I got even more shocked when the two just smirked at me while the embassy personnel asked, ‘Why, who are they laughing at?’ Actually, at that point, I didn’t know what was more shocking, seeing the accused laughing or seeing the Filipina assistant private counsel laugh with them,” she said.

I've always said na the US servicemen will be acquitted in the rape case, whether they're innocent or not.