MANILA, Philippines — A U.S. Marine suspected of killing a transgender Filipino has been detained at the Philippine military headquarters near Manila, though still under U.S. custody before his trial under a visiting forces agreement, the Philippine armed forces said Wednesday.
The suspect “remains in the custody of the U.S. as written in the Visiting Forces Agreement,” the military said in an emailed statement. “The Armed Forces of the Philippines merely provides a detention facility as agreed by both U.S. and Philippine governments.”
The Marine was airlifted early this morning from a temporary detention facility aboard the USS Peleliu in Subic Bay in Zambales province, and will be held in an air-conditioned cell inside Camp Aguinaldo pending a preliminary investigation, Philippine military chief General Gregorio Pio Catapang told reporters in Manila today.
The suspected involvement of an American in the murder has fueled public clamor for a review of the Philippine-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement, and a recently concluded defense accord that will increase the number of U.S. military personnel in the country for war games.
Catapang told reporters earlier Wednesday the U.S. soldier was under Philippine custody because he’s inside the military camp and is being guarded by Filipino soldiers.
“The confusion is going to further enrage and embolden Filipinos including high-profile senators and nationalists who have demanded the abrogation of the VFA,” Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila, said by phone. “Contradictory statements by the Philippines will deepen suspicion and outrage.”
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who heads the foreign relations committee, criticized the lopsided nature of the bilateral relationship.
“Never in the annals of modern political history has a country been so manipulated to serve the interest of another, and taught to be so ironically grateful for such an inequitable relationship,” she said today in a congressional probe of the murder.
The victim, a 26-year-old man who identifies as a woman, was found strangled on Oct. 11 in a motel in Olongapo City, north of Manila, where she was last seen with a foreign man, police said.
The U.S. and Philippine governments agreed to temporarily detain the Marine inside a container van with iron bars, Catapang said. A court will decide on where the suspect should be held once he’s indicted, he said.
The Olongapo City Prosecutor’s Office, which started the preliminary investigation of the murder Tuesday, ordered the chief police inspector to submit DNA results from the crime scene next week. The Marine didn’t attend the hearing. His defense team said it would study the complaint and decide whether to respond by Oct. 27, according to a live telecast of the probe.
A lower court convicted and sentenced Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith to 40 years in jail in December 2006 on charges of raping a local woman while on shore leave in November 2005 in Olongapo City. Smith was acquitted by an appeals court in 2009 after the woman recanted her testimony.
“The U.S. is compromising a little by retaining custody of the suspect while he’s inside a Philippine facility,” Benito Lim, a political science professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, said by phone. “It’s the biggest joke on the issue of custody and the Philippines must correct the ambiguity by seeking to renegotiate the VFA.”
