Banner: U.S. Marines raise the American flag as their Philippine counterparts raise their ensign during morning colors at the start of the base deactivation ceremony for Naval Station, Subic Bay. Taken 24 November 1992. Wikipedia Commons
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FORSEA Editor’s Remark
Sexual violence as a means of torture, sex-trafficking and institutionalized statuary rape of American minors in the United States (that is, sexual acts with young women under 18), video-recording sex acts as a blackmail intelligence operation have been in the headlines in countries like the United States and Israel.
Just google “Epstein Files”, “Sde Teiman prison rape in Israel’s Negev desert” The renowned University of Chicago scholar of international relations, John Mearshimer, talked about the depraved Israeli society which largely celebrate IDF and other security troops who rape Palestinian prisoners – hostages really – while Israeli leaders view such savage acts of torture as “a PR problem”.
There is another type of sexual violence whose perpetrators enjoy equal degree of impunity whose horrid crimes don’t get much media coverage, namely rape of local women by US military personnel in the countries the United States maintain its vast network of military bases including in Japan, S. Korea and the Philippines. The US troops who commit the savage crimes of rape, other abuses and murders of their victims are protected by the 17th century white colonial “legal” concept of “extraterritorial jurisdiction”. The cases that invoke such obsolete and imperialist law speak volumes about how US imperialism works to protect American crimes worldwide and conversely diminish the claims that countries that host US military bases have sovereignty.
“The principle of sovereignty, i.e. of supreme authority within a territory is a pivotal principle of modern international law. What counts as sovereignty depends on the nature and structure of the international legal order and vice-versa”
Samantha Besson, “Sovereignty”. Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, 2011
“A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.”
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1
“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal relations…It has pitiless torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848
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Despite formal appearances, the Republic of the Philippines is not a sovereign country. Nor are Philippine women. Under the imperialist sway of the United States, both have become commodities available for a cash payment. Not all women, of course, but those without the socio-economic capacity to assert their own sovereignty.
While the Philippine government continues to host Unites States troops with their bases and pre-positioned weapons aimed northward, all the better to join the U.S. in its planned war against China, it cannot be said to be a sovereign country. The United States will determine when and how those troops and weapons are deployed. It is the dominant power and to that extent, sovereign in a special sense. Especially in the current flexible and deteriorating “world legal order”.
The troops are stationed in at least nine bases across the Philippines, supplemented by thousands more during “joint exercises” with the Armed Forces of the Philippines[1] and other foreign troops, including from Australia which has a long history of training Filipino counterinsurgency officers. History shows that human rights abuse will be visited upon Filipino women, including rape and murder. (Such has been the case also in South Korea and Japan, especially in Okinawa.)
Cover of the first edition of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, a 1975 book about rape by Susan Brownmiller, in which the author argues that rape is “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” Wikipedia Commons
Fifty years ago Susan Brownmiller published her magnum opus: Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. She demonstrated the relationship between military forces and the domination of women, what she referred to as “the spoils of war”.
Domination ends sovereignty whether it is imposed e.g. economically by a foreign country and/or its troops. Both in the case of the United States now that it has its troop back in the Philippines. As a result of those troops, whether based there or visiting as they often do for “joint exercises, there have been decades of human rights violations, including sexual abuse and even murder going back to the 1950s ( When I was a young U.S. Naval officer and ships I was serving on were dispatched to the Philippines several times).
Twenty years ago, in November 2005, the infamous Subic Rape Case focused our attention on what foreign troops in military bases in the Philippines means for Filipino women. The case arose out of the “party scene” that existed at Subic Bay Freeport, the former U.S. Naval Base (there was also such a scene in Angeles City, adjacent to former Clark Air Field from which the Agent-Orange laden US long range B-52 bombers devastated Viet Nam’s forests and cities.)
In that controversial case, a Filipino woman visiting Subic on holiday, known in the proceedings as “Nicole”, claimed that she was raped while drunk in the back of a rented van by a U.S. Marine who was urged on by 4 or 5 fellow Marines (much as the woman was raped in the Jodie Foster film, The Accused). She was dumped out of the halted van, half naked “like a pig” according to one of eight witnesses.
The Marines had come to Subic for “Rest and Recreation” after participating in joint exercises with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The specific details of the judicial proceedings are beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say of the 4 Marines ultimately charged, only Lance Corporal Daniel John Smith was convicted of rape. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
In many previous cases the United States had always demanded that their accused military should be under its protection. In this case, as usual, the U.S. took the Marines into custody before the trial.
After the trial, the question arose: where will Smith serve his time? The Philippine government secured an agreement that the matter should be negotiated under the Visiting Forces Agreement which generally favors the United States. This was wondrously considered a great victory for Philippine sovereignty! But the pro-American Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs- Albert Romulo- negotiated a deal that allowed Smith to be held in the U.S. Embassy rather than a Philippine prison. Worse, when the Supreme Court decided that Smith should not be held there, the government ignominiously failed to intervene to get Smith under its control. A very short-lived “victory for Philippine sovereignty”.
“Nicole” subsequently recanted her testimony and the Appeals Court, in its discretion, used that to acquit Smith. Interestingly, there had been statements from the victim’s camp that before the trial they had been offered a large sum of money to drop the complaint. It is not clear why ‘Nicole” recanted but some believe she did so to get a U.S. visa and the money ($2000.00) she apparently also received. She settled in the U.S. Smith quickly returned to the United States.
Ten years ago , in December 2015, another Marine, Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton was convicted of the murder of Jennifer Laude, also at Subic Bay Freeport. He too was relaxing after completing “joint counterterrorism exercises” with the AFP.
Pemberton had gone to a hotel with Jennifer with the obvious intention of having intercourse with her. But when he discovered she was a transgender, he beat her, shoved her head into the toilet bowl and strangled her to death.
Pemberton’s defence was essentially that he was surprised and furious that he had been deceived, and just lashed out. He received a reduced charge of homicide not murder due to lack of premeditated intent, and a sentence of 6 to 12 years. This was subsequently reduced to 10, the court “recognizing” that Laude being trans was a mitigating factor as was Pemberton’s surprise! l He also was ordered to pay 4,32 million pesos to the family which was paid.
This time Pemberton was sent to prison in circumstances of considerable public outrage and public demonstrations.
Nearly 6 years later the President, Rodrigo Duterte gave Pemberton a pardon. Again there was a deal This time Pemberton was allowed to go back to the United States with the understanding that he would be tried by a Court Martial with a likelihood of more prison time. In fact he was never charged in the U.S. Although he was dismissed from the service, he did not receive any further prison time.
The real sovereign had demonstrated its power.
Gill H. Boehringer is Former Dean, now Honorary Professor at Macquarie University Law School, Sydney, Australia. He received his BSocS, from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (1955); an LLB from Hastings College of Law, University of California (1962) and an LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London(1967).
Gill H. Boehringer
[1] See three articles on such exercises in Batingaw #76, May 2025.
