Four US Marines and a Filipino driver were charged yesterday with raping a 22-year-old Filipina, prosecutors said, in a case that has reopened old wounds in the former US colony.
After a lengthy preliminary investigation, prosecutors concluded that the five men, accused of assaulting the woman in a van on Nov. 1 in the former US Naval base of Subic Bay north of Manila, had conspired to commit rape.
But two other Marines initially named as suspects were cleared after evidence indicated that they were not in the van during the alleged incident, prosecutors said.
"We expect the warrants of arrest to be issued as early as next week," prosecutor Raymond Viray said. "The case is strong. There is evidence. Conviction hinges on the credibility of the victim, and we are banking on that."
"They took advantage of the victim's intoxication, who they later abused using superior strength," Viray said.
Copies of the resolution filed by prosecutors said the woman first met the Marines at a Subic Bay nightclub.
Later, she "was forced outside of the club and brought onboard a vehicle where she was kissed, caressed on sensitive parts of her body, undressed and raped," the resolution said.
"She resisted and shouted for help as the other occupants of the van cheered on," prosecutors said in their report.
The Filipino driver of the van was named as a suspect after he recanted his earlier statement supporting the victim's claim that she was raped.
Viray said only one of the four Marines charged had sexually assaulted the woman, but that the other three and the driver provided "moral assistance" in committing the crime.
"Under our criminal law, there can be gang rape in the sense that others were together, encouraging or cooperating with the rape itself. And that is considered rape by all of them," the woman's lawyer, Katrina Legarda, said.
"Everyone [is] a principal [suspect] because there was inducement or cooperation if not participation," she said.
Legarda said the woman's legal team was also considering a motion for reconsideration to have the two other Marines charged as well because other accounts suggested they were in the van at the time of the alleged assault.
In their resolution, the prosecutors conceded they had "difficulty" in filing the case, noting: "This is caused primarily by complainants failure to properly identify the respondents in her sworn statement."
The suspects denied the woman's accusations in their affidavits, saying the woman had consensual sex with one of the soldiers, identified as Daniel Smith. But Legarda rejected that claim.
"The medico-legal findings show too many bruises for there to be consensual sex," she said.
The case has drawn widespread media attention in the Philippines, and human rights advocates say it has opened up old wounds caused by past abuses.
It is also seen as a litmus test for the visiting forces agreement, a treaty that grants limited immunity to criminal prosecution to US soldiers taking part in maneuvers in the Philippines.
The US embassy had invoked the treaty in refusing to hand over the suspects, but said they would turn the Marines over to authorities if they were formally charged.
Rape in the Philippines is punishable by life imprisonment or death if there are aggravating circumstances.
Viray said the foreign department would coordinate with the US embassy once the arrest warrants were issued.
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