Empire On Trial:

The Subic Rape Case and the Struggle For

Philippine Women’s Liberation1

Anne E. Lacsamana

It wasn’t easy for me to file a complaint against my

rapists. And neither was the (legal) system kind to me
after I decided to pursue the case. Instead of taking my
side in the fight, our government took steps to make my
situation much harder. I have not received a single mes-
sage of support from our woman President, while the
secretary of justice has even repeatedly defended my
rapists.
—Nicole, November 1, 2006
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. I would rather risk public
outrage than do nothing to help the court in ensuring
that justice is served.
—Nicole, March 8, 2009

By the time Philippine media outlets were alerted to the March 8,

2009 affidavit signaling that Nicole, the pseudonym of the woman
at the center of the Subic rape case, had “recanted” her earlier tes-
timony accusing U.S. Marine Daniel Smith of raping her almost four
years earlier, she had already fired her lawyer, Evalyn Ursua, ac-
cepted a settlement from the accused, and departed for the United
States where she planned to live permanently. This was a stunning
decision in an epic legal battle that, less than three years earlier, had
resulted in the historic conviction of Smith for the rape of Nicole on
November 1, 2005, marking the first time a member of the U.S. mil-
itary had ever been tried, convicted, and sentenced for a crime on
Philippine soil. For many Filipinos, the landmark “guilty” verdict and
the sentencing of Smith to forty years in a Philippine penitentiary de-
livered by Makati Regional Trial Judge Benjamin Pozon on Decem-
ber 4, 2006 represented not only a victory for Nicole but for a nation
that had grown accustomed to seeing its own interests subordinated

WORKS AND DAYS 57/58: Vol. 29, 2011

204 WORKS AND DAYS

to those of its former colonial ruler. The occasion, unfortunately,

would be short lived: on the evening of December 29, 2006 Smith
was secretly transferred from the Makati City Jail to the U.S. Embassy
to await his appeal, once more throwing the issue of Philippine sov-
ereignty starkly into question.
In addition to highlighting critical questions concerning violence
against women and sexual assault, the Subic rape case has reignited
protests over U.S. military intervention in the Philippines, specifi-
cally regarding the terms and conditions outlined in the controver-
sial Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). Seven years after a broad
coalition of progressive forces successfully ousted the two major U.S.
military installations, Subic Bay Naval Base (Olongapo City) and
Clark Air Force Base (Angles City), former President Joseph Estrada
signed the Visiting Forces Agreement into law in 1998, granting the
United States military unlimited access to twenty-two ports through-
out the country to conduct “joint” training exercises with members
of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Deployments of U.S.
troops have escalated since the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent dec-
laration of the Philippines as the “second front” in the U.S. led “war
on terror” in 2002, with the majority of soldiers being sent to the
southern, predominately Muslim region of the country. Though the
stated goal of their mission is to provide humanitarian aid to the war-
torn area, most believe U.S. military personnel are involved in a
“counter-terrorist” operation against the Abu-Sayyaf, an elusive ban-
dit group comprised of roughly 100 members with alleged loose ties
to al-Qaeda.
As well as enabling the United States military to re-establish a
dominant presence throughout the archipelago, the VFA extends ex-
traordinary privileges and protections to U.S. soldiers, effectively un-
dermining Philippine sovereignty and, by extension, the safety and
dignity of its citizens. For example, Article III “Entry and Departure”
of the VFA states that members of the U.S. military are “exempt from
passport and visa regulations upon entering and departing the Philip-
pines” while Article IV, “Driving and Vehicle Registration,” stipulates
that Philippine officials will “accept as valid, without test or fee, a
driving permit or license issued by the appropriate United States per-
sonnel for the operation of military or official vehicles” and that U.S.
government vehicles “need not be registered, but shall have appro-
priate markings.” Moreover, Article VII, “Importation and Exporta-
tion,” excuses U.S. soldiers from paying taxes and duty fees on items
purchased during their “temporary stay” in the Philippines (Visiting
Forces Agreement, 1998). The most flagrant violation of Philippine
sovereignty, however, is found under Article V “Criminal Jurisdic-
tion.” In the case of crimes committed by members of the U.S. armed
forces, this section of the VFA expects that “Philippine authorities
will, upon request by the United States, waive their primary right to
exercise jurisdiction except in cases of particular importance to the
Philippines” (Visiting Forces Agreement, 1998). If the Philippine gov-
ernment decides not to waive their right, officials have twenty days,
after receiving the United States request, to submit their communi-
cation to U.S. authorities. Should the Philippines be granted the right
to prosecute a U.S. soldier for a criminal offense, Article V requires
Lacsamana 205

all legal proceedings to be completed within a one-year period, dur-

ing which the accused will remain in the custody of the U.S. military.
If a soldier is convicted, the United States government has an un-
specified amount of time to appeal. In contrast, the complementary
agreement governing the treatment of visiting Filipino soldiers to the
United States, known as the VFA 2, requires that they be detained in
a U.S. jail. Specifically, Article 9 states that if a Filipino serviceman
is accused of committing a crime in the U.S. “confinement imposed
by a United States federal or state court upon a Republic of the
Philippines personnel shall be served in penal institutions in the
United States suitable for the custody level of the prisoners, chosen
after consultation between the two governments,” once more illus-
trating the inherent inequities underpinning the military arrange-
ments (Uy and Guinto, 2009).
Long before Nicole brought charges against her accused rapists,
the lopsided provisions contained within the VFA raised alarm for
Filipino feminists. Days after Ramos signed the treaty, GABRIELA, an
umbrella federation of women’s groups in the Philippines, argued
the VFA, specifically Article V, provided U.S. military personnel with
the “diplomatic license to violate our women and children”
(GABRIELA Press Release, 1998). Their concerns were not un-
founded; incidences of sexual assault perpetrated by U.S. service-
men against Filipino women had become routine around the military
bases. During the Marcos dictatorship, for example, a U.S. soldier
was allowed to leave the country after it was discovered he was re-
sponsible for organizing a prostitution ring in Olongapo involving
twelve young girls, otherwise known as the “Olongapo Twelve,” in-
fected with a number of sexually transmitted diseases (San Juan,
1998). In another case, a U.S. soldier escaped prosecution for the
rape and murder of Rosario Baluyot, a twelve-year-old girl who died
after being poisoned by a vibrator that had been broken off and left
inside her body. Though gruesome, both of these crimes belong to a
much larger pattern of militarized violence, comprising approxi-
mately 2,000 reported cases in the post World War II period, that
never reached Philippine courts (Rosca, 2007, p. 2). Susan R. McKay
reminds us that these patterns of gendered violence are typically
manifest indirectly, through macro forces, such as the global econ-
omy, or international law, and directly through interpersonal forms
of violence, such as assault and rape. However, McKay claims “it is
essential that both indirect and direct violence toward women are
understood as fundamental phenomena that maintain inequality”
(1998, p. 349). This is why, in the shadow of the U.S. military and the
VFA, the Subic rape case takes on a special significance when con-
nected to structural and micro forms of violence against women in
militarized spaces.
After a night of drinking at the Neptune Club in Subic Freeport,
home to the former naval base, a U.S. Marine raped Nicole inside a
moving van as three of his friends cheered him on. Afterwards,
Nicole was dumped, half-clothed on the side of the road as the van
sped off. Court documents later identified the accused as Lance Cor-
porals Daniel Smith, Keith Silkwood, Dominic Duplantis and Staff
Sergeant Chad Carpentier. Members of the 31st Marine Expedi-
206 WORKS AND DAYS

tionary Force stationed in Okinawa, the four soldiers had just com-
pleted Balikatan exercises with members of the Philippine military.
Adhering to the guidelines of the VFA, a one-year deadline was im-
posed for the trial, thus placing the prosecution team under enor-
mous pressure to present their case with the necessary evidence. It
quickly became clear that Nicole was not simply going to trial
against four soldiers, but a military superpower prepared to flex its
political and economic muscle to protect its personnel from prose-
cution.
During the proceedings, Duplantis, Carpentier, and Silkwood
maintained their innocence by corroborating Smith’s testimony that
he and the victim engaged in “consensual sex.” Although these three
soldiers were eventually acquitted due to lack of evidence, the con-
viction of Smith rested on DNA evidence and Makati Regional Trial
Court Judge Benjamin Pozon’s interpretation of Republic Act No.
8353, otherwise known as the Anti-Rape Law of 1997. Testimony
from medical experts, bar patrons and police investigators indicated
that “Nicole” was too intoxicated to “consent” to sex with Smith.
Agreeing with their findings, Pozon delivered the landmark “guilty”
verdict, sentencing Smith to 40 years in the Makati City Jail and or-
dering him to pay “Nicole” P100,000 ($2000). In the lengthy deci-
sion Pozon argued the “court is morally convinced that Smith
committed the crime charged. He admitted having sex with the com-
plainant whom he knew was intoxicated . . . thus she could not have
consented on the bestial acts of the accused” (Torres, 2006). Ac-
cording to the Anti-Rape Law, a rape is committed “when the of-
fended party is deprived of reason or otherwise unconscious” (1997).
After the verdict, Smith was escorted directly to the Makati City Jail
to begin his sentence, despite appeals from his lawyers to have him
remain in U.S. custody.
Outraged over the conviction, the United States threatened to can-
cel all future joint military exercises if Smith was not transferred back
to the U.S. Embassy to appeal the decision. Considering that the
Armed Forces of the Philippines “has received the most dramatic in-
crease in foreign military funding from the U.S. since 2001” (Do-
cena, 2006, p. 7) the prospect of losing a critical source of financial
support proved too great for the Arroyo administration. Circumvent-
ing Pozon’s decision, an agreement was signed between Foreign Af-
fairs Secretary Alberto Romulo and U.S. Ambassador to the
Philippines Kristie Kenney, enabling Smith’s return to the U.S. Em-
bassy after serving only twenty-five days of his sentence. Soon after,
the resumption of Balikatan operations was announced, and the U.S.
Marines issued a public statement promising that its members would
commit “no more rape” during their stay in the Philippines (Orejas,
2007).
The diplomatic bullying and behind-the-scenes legal wrangling
that U.S. officials used to secure Smith’s custody underscore the in-
iquitous neocolonial relationship between the United States and the
Philippines. This is most evident when compared to the way U.S. of-
ficials have recently handled other high profile military crimes in the
region. For example, in 2007, the U.S. Army publicly apologized to
S. Korean officials for the rape of a 67-year-old woman by a U.S.
Lacsamana 207

solider, claiming that the “vicious act is an affront to all soldiers” as-
suring the country that the United States military was “cooperating
fully with Korean authorities” (Agence France-Presse, 2007). A sim-
ilar situation occurred in 2008 after Japanese authorities detained a
U.S. Marine for the abduction and alleged rape of a 14-year-old
young woman. Although she dropped the charges a few days later,
the U.S. Marine Corps conducted its own internal investigation and
sentenced the man to four years in prison for “abusive sexual con-
duct with a Japanese teenager in Okinawa” (Wright, 2008, p. 3).
Fearing the incident would endanger the important military alliance
between the two countries, U.S. officials, including former Secretary
of State Condoleeza Rice, issued formal apologies to Japanese Prime
Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Foreign Minister Mashiko Komura
(Wright, 2008, p. 2). Reminiscent of the widely publicized 1995 Ok-
inawan rape case, involving the prosecution and sentencing of three
U.S. soldiers to seven years in a Japanese penitentiary for the gang
rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan school girl, the effort made by U.S.
authorities to smooth over diplomatic relations stands in sharp con-
trast to their handling of the Subic rape case.
Highlighting these recent events, however, is not intended to imply
that the United States is, or has always been, cooperative with gov-
ernments hosting its military installations. Rather, these transnational
comparisons reveal similarities and differences across regions. Bar-
bara Sutton and Julie Novkov stress the importance of exposing
“‘linkages’ among different places, underscoring how social
processes and ideologies in one area of the world relate to crises,
power struggles, or political designs in other areas” (2008, p. 11).
Similar to Filipinos, S. Koreans and Okinawans have all seen their
sovereignty jeopardized by status of forces agreements (SOFA) that
govern the behavior of U.S. military personnel during their tours of
duty. Typically, SOFAs are negotiated in private, between the U.S.
government and the specific country that will be “home” to its mil-
itary base (Moon, 1997; Enloe, 2000). As a result, the U.S. frequently
has invoked the shield of these military agreements to protect its
troops from prosecution for crimes such as rape and/or murder. For
example, in Okinawa “between 1972 and 1995, U.S. servicemen
were implicated in 4,716 crimes, nearly one per day . . . and few in-
deed have suffered any inconvenience for their crimes” (Magdoff et.
al, 2002, p. 9). On the rare occasion that a serviceman is actually
punished for a crime in the “host” country, it is largely due to or-
ganized anti-bases protests, particularly those spearheaded by grass-
roots women’s organizations that draw explicit attention to the
gendered and racialized dimensions of military violence.
Cynthia Enloe explains that during the 1970s, after a string of un-
solved murders allegedly perpetrated by U.S. soldiers, S. Korean
women located in and around the military camptowns began or-
ganizing and pressuring the local police and government officials to
be more vigilant in tracking down the assailants (2000, p. 92). Sim-
ilarly, in the aftermath of the 1995 gang rape in Okinawa, Japanese
women forged broad coalitions with S. Korean and Filipino feminists
to protest U.S. militarization throughout the Asia Pacific region. In
the Philippines, the women’s movement has a lengthy history of uti-
208 WORKS AND DAYS

lizing rallies, vigils, marches, and other forms of public protest to

demonstrate their opposition to U.S. military aggression, acknowl-
edging that the presence of U.S. troops is “more than a question of
sovereignty [but] is in fact a question of national dignity, class in-
equalities, sexual politics, and racism” (Santos, 1992, p. 38). Ex-
panding the anti-imperialist nationalist movement’s analysis of
militarization to include issues of gender and race, the Philippine
women’s movement makes explicit that national liberation is inti-
mately tied to women’s liberation. By directly assailing U.S. mili-
tarism, and by extension U.S. imperialism, Filipino women’s
grassroots activism underscores the importance and necessity of a
“nationalist feminist” perspective in a “Third World” formation. De-
spite the fact that “nationalism” has been maligned in much of west-
ern feminist theory due to its modernist and patriarchal moorings,
Filipino feminists, through vigorous debate and dialogue with their
male counterparts, have forged a unique and vibrant anti-imperial-
ist women’s liberation movement. As Filipino critic Delia Aguilar
notes, many Filipino women strongly believe that “freedom from op-
pression as women can become possible only when the nation is
liberated from U.S. domination and when the majority of the people
can be released from poverty, illness, malnutrition, and other forms
of deprivation rampant in a neocolony” (1998, p. 45). Thus, it makes
sense that a focal point for women’s organizing would center on the
effects of U.S. militarism in the country, symbolic of both the sup-
pression of Philippine sovereignty and the violation of Filipino
women’s dignity.
Prior to granting formal “independence” on July 4, 1946, the
United States signed the Military Bases Agreement, and the Military
Assistance Agreement enabling it to maintain two major military in-
stallations in the Philippines: Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval
Base along with 23 smaller facilities. Often praised by both U.S. and
Philippine governments for providing an economic boost to the
country, the military facilities became notorious for generating pros-
titution in their respective communities. According to the feminist
NGO WEDPRO (Women’s Education Development Productivity and
Research Organization), 70 percent of women working around the
bases “were in prostitution well before they turned 18” with 50 per-
cent reporting they had “never worked in similar situations” prior to
working in the “entertainment” or “red light” districts (Santos, Hoff-
man, and Bulawan, 1998, p. 3). The sheer magnitude of prostitution
during this period resulted in its “normalization” whereby the sexual
assault and exploitation of women became a routine, acceptable
part of life in the cities of Angeles and Olongapo (Santos, Hoffman,
and Bulawan, 1998, p. 3). Not surprisingly, the presence of the bases
further inculcated a deep sense of racial and cultural inferiority
among many Filipinos, particularly women, who often found them-
selves attempting to reconcile contradictory processes where “re-
demptive hopes and expectations—through love and marriage,
escape to the United States and its glories—violently collid[ed] with
the environs in which these are nurtured, suffused as the bases
[were] by naked exploitation” (Aguilar, 1998, p. 7). Indeed, the de-
sire to improve one’s status by marrying a white American man and
Lacsamana 209

having light-skinned, blue-eyed children became a dream for many

women working as prostitutes, despite being surrounded by U.S. sol-
diers proudly wearing t-shirts depicting Filipinas as “Little Brown
Fucking Machines Powered By Rice.” More often than not, however,
most women never achieved these dreams, left behind to care for
the thousands of Amerasian children abandoned by servicemen once
their stay in the Philippines had expired. According to feminist schol-
ars Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey, the situation for these chil-
dren had become so acute that a lawsuit was filed in the United
States in 1993 on their behalf, only to have it not be “considered in
any serious way” by U.S. government officials (1998, p. 312).
Throughout the 1980s, various sectors of the Philippine women’s
movement, including GABRIELA, BUKLOD Center, Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women Asia-Pacific (CATWAP), and WEDPRO,
mobilized to respond to the crisis of militarized prostitution by cre-
ating women’s shelters, providing health and counseling services,
and offering educational seminars on HIV/AIDS, among other prac-
tical initiatives (Santos, Hoffman, and Bulawan, 1998; Kirk and
Okazawa-Rey, 1998). Together, in conjunction with the broader anti-
imperialist nationalist movement, Filipino feminists played an im-
portant role in convincing members of the Philippine Senate to reject
the lease renewal on the bases in 1991. Preferring the term “prosti-
tuted” women to denote the larger socio-economic factors respon-
sible for forcing many women into the industry, Filipino feminist
activists have been vocal in their efforts to end the traffic in women
and children.
This anti-trafficking position has, in certain feminist theoretical cir-
cles, provoked consternation among those who claim such efforts
do more harm than good to the women involved. For example, in her
analysis of Korean NGOs involved in anti-trafficking campaigns, Na
Young Lee (2006) acknowledges the significant accomplishments
various groups have achieved in bringing greater attention to issues
of militarism and prostitution. However, she argues that they “can-
not allow any other perspectives besides the anti-sex work feminist
position which sees prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation or
patriarchal crimes” (p. 465). By using terms such as “prostituted”
women instead of “sex workers,” Lee maintains that the diversity and
complexity of women’s individual lives become obscured when
there is an “official frame or master narrative informing a particular
analysis” (2006, p. 466). In many ways, Lee’s work echoes that of
Anne-Marie Hilsdon (1995) who, in one of the only scholarly ac-
counts of gender and militarism in the Philippines, argued that “pros-
titution at the former U.S. bases was a narrative of both exploitation
and agency” since it allowed greater economic and sexual inde-
pendence for Filipino women compared to those living in more rural
areas (p. 106). The social costs of such independence, however, are
rarely discussed in analytical formulations dedicated to recuperating
women’s “agency” at the expense of other pressing considerations.
Indeed, this specific theoretical stance has grown in popularity over
the recent years, as feminists have become increasingly more inter-
ested in examining women’s subjectivity within the libidinal rather
than the political economy.
210 WORKS AND DAYS

As useful as these accounts may be for delving into the minutiae

of individual women’s lives, they fail to imagine alternatives to the
existing social order, constrained by ideological requirements to dis-
pense with the material or “official frame” in favor of obfuscatory
discursive analyses that do little to destabilize the economic, social,
or political forces underpinning the exploitation of “Third World”
women’s labor and sexuality. To illustrate, in her deployment of a
Foucauldian lens to analyze militarized gender violence, Hilsdon’s
scholarship focuses on the “positioning of women” in the “con-
frontation between liberation and state armies—that is the Commu-
nist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA) and the
. . . Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)” (1995, p. 2). Adhering to
Foucault’s famous dictum that power is “capillary,” Hilsdon effec-
tively flattens the important distinctions between the AFP and NPA
by arguing that neither the “state nor its army has a monopoly on
disciplinary power” (1995, p. 25). This revelation might come as a
shock to the numerous Filipinos who have been unjustly subjected
to intensified government harassment and state military intimidation
since the election of President Arroyo in 2001. Indeed, continuing
the “all out” war against the Philippine Left initiated by her prede-
cessors, over 1,000 legal activists from across the social spectrum
(peasants, union leaders, journalists, feminists, students, lawyers,
etc.) have been murdered with hundreds more “disappeared.” De-
spite international condemnation from a host of human rights or-
ganizations, killings of political opponents by members of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines (trained by the United States military cour-
tesy of the VFA) have continued unabated. Against this volatile back-
drop of contemporary Philippine life, Hilsdon’s scholarship can serve
as a cautionary tale, exposing the pitfalls and limitations of post-
modern politics. In contrast, the anti-imperialist feminist perspective
informing grassroots Filipino women’s activism against U.S. mili-
tarism can serve as a necessary antidote to the recent spate of post-
modern-inspired feminist theoretical production. By organizing mass
campaigns against militarized sexual violence, the Philippine
women’s movement has helped raise the profile of a historically,
overlooked by-product of U.S.-Philippine relations, arguably paving
the way for the historic conviction of Daniel Smith in 2005.
United under the slogan “Justice For Nicole, Justice For Our Na-
tion,” members of GABRIELA, Task Force Subic Rape (TFSR), and the
Nicole Information Bureau worked collectively throughout the court
proceedings to monitor the trial, provide support to Nicole and her
family, and help educate the general public about the relationship of
the case to the larger issue of Philippine sovereignty. With over 200
member organizations GABRIELA is the largest alliance of women’s
groups in the country. Founded in 1984, it has played a critical role
during its history in advocating on behalf of women who have suf-
fered under unjust military agreements. In the aftermath of the Subic
rape, women affiliated with GABRIELA continued to pressure the Ar-
royo administration to nullify the VFA “claiming the government is
putting more weight to the apparent success of the U.S.-backed cam-
paign against the Abu-Sayaff to stifle calls for the review or scrap-
ping of the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement” (Alipala, 2007). Other
Lacsamana 211

groups, such as Task Force Subic Rape, a women-led coalition of 17

member organizations working outside the purview of GABRIELA,
was created to “support a fair trial for Nicole’s case and to bring jus-
tice not only to Nicole, but also to the women and children violated
by the U.S.-led wars of aggression all over the world” (2006, p.8).
Members drafted and distributed a primer on the Anti-Rape Law of
1997 and the VFA and encouraged citizens to “always anchor the
rape case on the issue of the legitimacy of the VFA and how this
agreement violates the sovereignty of the Philippines as a duly rec-
ognized independent state” (2006, p. 7). Similarly, the Nicole De-
fense Campaign and its media relations arm, the Nicole Information
Bureau, developed online resources to provide the public inside and
outside the Philippines with accurate information concerning the
trial. For example, a paper outlining the specific connections be-
tween the Subic rape case and the VFA is contained on their website,
among various other documents. Specifically, it explains that while
the VFA is a variation of the aforementioned Status of Forces Agree-
ment that the United States has in place with other countries host-
ing its military installations, it is significantly different because it was
negotiated in the absence of bases, therefore placing the entire coun-
try under the auspices of its terms and regulations (www.subi-
crapecase.wordpress.com). Since this formation essentially gives the
U.S. military unchecked power over the whole territory of the Philip-
pines, the vigorous, organized response of a diverse array of Filipino
feminists is evidence of the tremendous importance placed on the
outcome of the Subic rape case.
Given this context many of Nicole’s supporters were shocked and
saddened when her second affidavit emerged. Still, they urged the
public not to blame Nicole for her decision, acknowledging the
tremendous pressure and scrutiny she and her family had faced since
2005. Speaking on behalf of GABRIELA, Liza Maza characterized
Nicole’s sudden change of heart as “unfortunate,” noting that it made
her a “victim of three aspects: rape, the government, and the VFA”
(Maragay, 2009). In a statement to the press, Nicole’s former lawyer
Evalyn Ursua explained that the family had grown “tired of the case”
and that Nicole left the country because “there was no justice” in the
Philippines (Jiminez-David, 2008). Women’s groups were also quick
to counter media reports that Nicole had “recanted,” arguing that
she never retracted her original claim that she was raped by Smith.
On their website, members of Task Force Subic Rape reminded read-
ers that there were “three other conditions for rape apart from sex-
ual coercion” that included the victim being “drugged or
intoxicated.” Arguing that her “affidavit was not a recantation,” TSFR
reiterated Pozon’s decision that Nicole was too intoxicated to give
consent to Smith (www.subicrapecase.wordpress.com). Moreover,
feminist organizations stressed the document was completely irrel-
evant since the Anti-Rape Law of 1997 declared rape to be a public,
rather than a private, crime. This meant that the trial, having already
been determined, was no longer between Nicole and Smith, but
rather the Republic of the Philippines and Smith. Still, many were
left puzzled by both the timing of her decision and the surreptitious
manner in which her affidavit was executed. For example, just a
212 WORKS AND DAYS

month earlier, on February 11, 2009, the Philippine Supreme Court

ruled that Smith be returned immediately to Philippine custody. In
their decision, the judges argued that the “Romulo-Kenney agree-
ments of Dec. 19 and 22, 2006, which are agreements on the de-
tention of the accused in the United States Embassy, are not in
accord with the VFA itself because such detention is not ‘by Philip-
pine authorities’” (GMANEWS, 2009, p. 2). Though the Supreme
Court did not declare the VFA illegal, as many had hoped, their judg-
ment remanding Smith to Philippine custody was, in light of the cir-
cumstances, a momentary victory for Nicole and her legal team.
Despite the ruling, however, the United States refused to hand
Smith over to Philippine authorities. This blatant rejection of Philip-
pine law only strengthened calls, among progressive nationalist or-
ganizations, to abrogate the VFA. By early March, with Smith
continuing to languish in U.S. custody, newly elected U.S. President
Obama made a “surprise” phone call to President Arroyo assuring
her of his continued support for the VFA. Two days later, Nicole
signed her “recantation” in the office of the law firm representing
Smith and left for the United States. In response to suggestions that
Nicole might have been pressured or bribed by U.S. officials to
change her previous testimony, Nicole’s mother asked the public to
respect her decision, noting that the family had “fought long enough.
We just want peace of mind, to live quietly” (Quismundo and Ali-
pala, 2009, p. 2). She went on to explain that the protracted legal
battle had taken a toll on her daughter, stating, “every time we went
out and people recognized us, my daughter almost melted with
shame. We couldn’t have peace” (Quismundo and Alipala, 2009,
p. 2). In her discussion of militarized sexual violence, Enloe explains
that rape victims often have to navigate conflicting and complex
emotions as they formulate a response to their assault. In most cases,
these women have to weigh “a woman who is raped has relation-
ships to the rapists and to her personal friends and relatives, to the
prevailing norms of feminine respectability, and perhaps to the crim-
inal justice system, but in addition, she must weigh her relationships
to collective memory, collective notions of national destiny, and the
very institutions of organized violence” (Enloe, 2000, p. 111).
Though it is futile to speculate what planted the seeds of doubt in
Nicole’s mind, the historic circumstances surrounding her trial must
be tied forever to the collective memory of the thousands of Filipinas
who have preceded her down the difficult and daunting task of seek-
ing justice and accountability from the imperial hegemon.
Notwithstanding the presence of a well-organized women’s move-
ment, the Subic rape case exposed contradictions regarding tradi-
tional notions of Philippine womanhood and femininity, with some
women rallying behind Smith while publicly chastising Nicole for
her “reckless” behavior. In letters written to the Philippine Daily In-
quirer, for example, some Filipinas expressed their willingness to
join a “club or something in support of Smith” as others questioned
Nicole’s motives by asking “[w]hat kind of woman will get herself
drunk in a bar, flirt with soldiers, go out with them, and expect not
to get molested?” (Tulfo, 2006, p. 1-2). The release of two porno-
graphic DVD’s titled Olongapo Scandal and Nicole, both based on
Lacsamana 213

the events of November 1, 2005, only added to the public humilia-

tion Nicole endured. Although it has been common in rape cases to
“blame the victim,” it is important to locate these responses to Nicole
within the history of Spanish and U.S. colonialism.
One of the most enduring legacies of 350 years of Spanish colo-
nial rule was the introduction of Catholicism that radically altered
existing ideologies concerning gender and sexuality. Discussing this
period, Elizabeth Eviota notes that “religion was to have different
consequences for women and men” thus producing a sexual double-
standard that circumscribed Filipino women’s sexuality, relegating
her to the domestic sphere (1992, p. 39). According to the teachings
of the Catholic Church, “[d]aughters should be taught to fear God,
to take care of their virginity and to be modest so as not to be taken
advantage of by men. Women should be taught to keep house and
to love the home because according to the Bible, the fortunes of the
household lay on their shoulders” (Eviota, 1992, p. 60). Spanish
colonialists justified the regulation of Filipino women’s sexual be-
havior through religious doctrine because they felt most were “‘li-
centious’ and ‘immoral’ [who] did not know the meaning of ‘love’”
(Eviota, 1992, p.41). In her perspicacious analysis of colonial dis-
courses in the Dutch East Indies, Ann Laura Stoler explains that
“[s]exual promiscuity or restraint were not abstract characteristics
attached to any persons who exhibited those behaviors, but as often
post-hoc interpretations contingent on the racialized class and gen-
dered categories to which individuals were already assigned” (1995,
p. 115). By describing Filipino women as “erotically driven, sensu-
ally charged, and sexually precocious” the Spanish were able to fur-
ther their colonial project through the religious disciplining of
Filipino women’s sexuality (Stoler 1995, p.115; Eviota 1992, p. 39).
Women who were to step outside the traditional notions of re-
spectable Philippine femininity were subject to censure and rebuke.
Several centuries later, the Catholic Church continues to wield enor-
mous influence in the social and political affairs of the Philippines.
With over 90% of the population Catholic, divorce remains illegal in
the country, abortion is prohibited as well as contraception, thereby
limiting the availability of condoms and other methods of family
planning to Filipino citizens. In this context, it is not difficult to see
why Nicole and the Subic rape case stirred so many differing emo-
tions.
Indeed, these cultural ideals governing Philippine womanhood
manifested themselves a little more than a month after Nicole left
the country, when the Philippine Court of Appeals (CA) acquitted
Lance Corporal Daniel Smith. In their decision, the justices, com-
prised of three women, ruled that Smith and Nicole shared a “spon-
taneous, unplanned romantic episode” and were simply “carried
away by their passions” (Torres, 2009). The judgment also indicted
Nicole for her “audacity” to flirt with Smith with “reckless abandon,”
claiming that when their brief “romance” ended, Nicole became ir-
ritated and charged Smith with rape. Despite the mounds of medical
testimony presented at the original trial indicating force had been
used, the CA claimed they could find “no evidence” that this was
the case. Within hours of his acquittal, Smith left the country for a
214 WORKS AND DAYS

“secret” location to be reunited with his family, ending a nearly three

year legal battle that, if the conviction was upheld, would have been
a momentous victory for Filipino women and Philippine sovereignty.
Smith’s acquittal has only strengthened the resolve of the Philippine
women’s movement, however, as mass protests demanding the abo-
lition of the VFA continue at the time of this writing.

Notes
1
The research and writing of this essay was generously supported by an
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Post Doctoral Fel-
lowship.

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