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OLONGAPO CITY, Zambales, Philippines – Hours before being deported Sunday morning, Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton apologized for the first time since he strangled transgender Jennifer Laude to death in 2014.
Pemberton’s attorney, Rowena Garcia-Flores, said the 25-year-old former Marine expressed his “deepest condolences” to the Laude family.
“In the years he spent locked up, he spent a lot of time contemplating the many mistakes in his ways regarding the night of October 11, 2014. I wish I had the words to express the depth of his pain and regret,” Flores said in a statement. .
Pemberton also thanked President Rodrigo Duterte for the controversial pardon the president granted days after a court in the city of Olongapo issued a similarly controversial decision to release Pemberton for good conduct.
But Laude’s family rejected the apology as “insincere” and “written” and “obviously dictated or made by Pemberton’s attorney.”
“I can not accept it. It seems insincere, ”Laude’s mother, Julita Cabillan, said in a text message to her attorney Virgie Lacsa-Suarez. “Can’t you write your own apology letter?”
Laude’s sister, Marilou, also dismissed the apology, saying it should have been attributed to Pemberton’s attorney as it was obviously “written.”
Suárez, for his part, wished that Pemberton could “find tranquility” and hoped that “from all this he had learned the value of life and dignity regardless of gender and nationality.”
On the other hand, True Colors Coalition-Pilipinas, a group of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals, wanted the Pemberton crime to “haunt him and his conscience bother him every day.”
“Don’t forget your sin and the image of Jennifer Laude with her head in the toilet bowl,” the group told Pemberton.
Bayan Muna’s representative, Ferdinand Gaite, was equally angry: “Never forget Jennifer Laude. Never forget his murder. Never forget the name of his killer. And above all, never forget who freed his killer. “
“People will hold President Duterte accountable and history will not be kind. President Duterte will be remembered as the American lackey who freed the murderer of his fellow Filipino. A traitor to his own people, ”said the Makabayan legislator.
Gaite blamed Pemberton’s release on the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that allowed for government-to-government arrangements that did not serve the purpose of justice.
“We reiterate our call for the immediate termination of the VFA and the complete withdrawal of the US armed forces in the Philippines,” Gaite said. “Injustices like this would continue to occur as long as we are tied to an agreement that values the interests of a foreign power above our own dignity and sovereignty as a nation.”
Bayan’s secretary general, Renato Reyes, agreed with Gaite on the need to review the VFA and ensure that there are no longer “crimes against the Filipinos and no more affront to our sovereignty.”
Reyes urged the public to allow the Pemberton case, as well as the 30th anniversary of the 1991 Senate’s rejection of the United States Military Bases Agreement, “to be an inspiration in our efforts to end the VFA, defend our sovereignty, and restore our national dignity “. –WITH DJ YAP REPORTS AND SUBSUBING KRIXIA INQ
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