Nicole should not be blamed

Twenty five year old Suzette Nicolas, the alleged rape victim of Lance Corporal Daniel Smith left the country for America two months ago. Nicolas decided to go the States to be with her beau, another American serviceman based in America.

Her mom, Susan Nicolas said, it's time for her daughter to move on with her life. " There's no justice here," Susan said, citing reports that Smith continues to defy the Supreme Court decision ordering the US government to hand over Smith and make him serve his sentence in a Philippine facility while awaiting judgment in his appeal filed at the Court of Appeals.

Question---will we fault her? Will we now say that she made the right decision? Or, her decision to leave this country and settle abroad is, again, a wrong one?

No one has the right to judge Nicole. I mean, those who now militate against her action, are not rape victims. They are spectators. Like Smith, they used Nicole to further their own personal interests. Those who judge Nicole are worst than those four servicemen who cheered Smith while he violated Nicole inside that van parked in Neptune Club some years ago.

Nicole just wanted to end the cycle of abuse that she and her family were experiencing since she filed that complaint against Smith. That rape was just the beginning. When she exposed what had happened to her before the prying eyes of the public, she was being violated, and raped, and abused, millions of times.

The media used her to highlight the obvious effects of such an incident relative to US-Philippine relations. Civil society, especially those who have traditional hatred against America, used her and propped her as a symbol. They squeezed every single publicity drop out of her. And the government, this morally decrepit regime, used her as leverage in its game with the newly installed leadership.

Obviously, certain forces and powers were at play in this drama. Late last year, this parody was conceived in those dark corners of the palace and inside the hallways of the US embassy. Remember that this government played the Smith card when it sent that DILG undersecretary to check on Smith. Undersecretary Santos might have been ordered by the palace to squeeze a compromise. Or maybe, just maybe, Santos might have conspired with the legal team of Smith and the family of Nicole to put an end to this affair that has shamed both countries.

Eventually, this recantation will be used to justify the release of Smith and finally end the debate on whether to abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) or not. Probably, the US realized that they need the VFA given the increasing security threats they are facing in the Pacific.

Boldly, Smith will be released and immediately sent to the States. While Nicole, well, she was sent there, hoping to find that happiness in the arms of that guy, who professed to love her inspite of what happened.

We are not rape victims and we are not in the position to judge her.