The premature order issued by the Bureau of Immigration to deport US marine private first class Joseph Scott Pemberton while a case for the murder of Jeffry “Jenifer” Laude is pending in the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court, Branch 74, is already sending a chilling message of what is in store for us in our so-called “military alliance” with the US.
On the surface, the premature and pre-emptive order to deport appears to be the result of pressure possibly from Malacañang, it having exhibited the most disgraceful subservience to the US, and possibly from the US embassy. But those nincompoops in the Bureau of Immigration should have restrained themselves. There is a precedent to what we are saying as when people from the Department of Justice suddenly barged in to the Makati City Jail, where US service man Daniel Smith was detained, to allow him to leave the country before the court could render a verdict on him for rape. The BI authorities were aware that the court has already acquired jurisdiction, and the case now awaits decision. What the BI did was to show its most contemptuous act of disrespect to the court.
It seems that the Bureau of Immigration can do things on its own, like unilaterally deporting an alien, especially if there is pressure, like deporting known drug lords and other criminal syndicates they know are oozing with bribe money just to mollify whatever judgment awaits them. Definitely, there is in this case visible markings that the BI was pressured to issue that deportation order which is the exact opposite to what it should have done by imposing a “hold departure order” to Pemberton, so as to allow the court to decide whether to order his deportation or to let him serve his sentence first, if found guilty.
Time and again, this kind of embarrassment is bound to happen because the US does not allow its servicemen to be placed under the jurisdiction of our courts for any crime they commit in the country where there are stationed. They treat their military personnel as an extension of their sovereignty; that to surrender them to our local courts would be tantamount to giving up the jurisdiction of the US government which they will never concede. Though the issue is focused on the arrest of a US serviceman accused of committing a crime in this country, the issue of jurisdiction has always been considered non-negotiable to any bases agreement they enter into, which reason also why most countries refuse to allow their territory to be converted into a US military base.
They value their sovereignty and independence more than they value their security interest. Seeing the issue of jurisdiction as something they could not bargain, they would rather do away with the US bases. In our case, such has repeatedly happened, for it seems this cycle of humiliation has now become a part of our national psyche. The return of the US military bases has earned for us the distinction of being the only country in the world to voluntarily allow itself to be re-colonized, and woefully by the same imperialist power that trots as the defender of freedom and of democracy.
The world is laughing at us, for up to now we remain credulous to believe that the US is here to protect us. In fact, under the Visiting Forces Agreement and now under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, we practically turned over to them the entire country on a silver platter, for the US to select which area to convert as their military base or even the entire archipelago if they wish. Moreover, our agreement does not only include the privilege of extra-territoriality or immunity from any criminal offense they commit here, but extend to such privileges as exemption from payment for water and electrical consumption, and even for us to erect facilities for their use.
Whoever is that stool-pigeon who wants to ingratiate this tuwid na daan and the US embassy was likely lured by the offer of visa in exchange for betraying his own country. The Bureau of Immigration put the country in an awkward position, and even jeopardized the equally off-key diplomatic offensive being carried out by a sheepishly pro-US Secretary del Rosario. Thus, as we press hard to assert our claim of sovereignty over those islets in the Spratlys, these morons in the BI made a laughing stock to our claim. China may not openly tell us that but impliedly, they are telling us that we cannot even enforce our jurisdiction over those US soldiers who violate our laws well within our territory, yet we have the gull to claim islands in the China Sea imagining that the US will be on our side.
One must recall that it was the Philippines through Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario and Secretary of Defense Voltaire Gazmin that heightened the tension with China over our claim in the China Sea area. But how would we rely on the US to protect us when there is much doubt they would ever honor their agreement with us? Even if the Pemberton case is not directly related to our conflict with China, the case somehow spells out the demarcation line as to where the US stands. Even in the remotest possibility that the Permanent Arbitration Court will decide the case in our favor, could we invoke on our defense pact with the US to help us enforce that decision?
Such observation is relevant, for admittedly, there are punctuated holes in our relations with the US that serve to prevent us from exercising full jurisdiction within our own territory. Although there are limitations to our exercise of jurisdiction and assertion of sovereignty, somehow we could have capitalized on our clout and respectability if other countries, including China, do not see in us as openly parading ourselves as stooge of the US. Somehow China would be sympathetic and understanding to us, as they managed to understand Taiwan now.
But as it is, China looks at our claim as pursuant to US interest. From that perspective, China would never allow us to play proxy to advance US interest in the region. Our inability to prosecute US servicemen who commit crime here now stands as a black eye that reduced the credibility of our claim as an independent state. Moreover, for the fact that the US refuses to acknowledge our defense pact with them as a treaty, but a mere executive agreement, is ominous that our role in that alliance is for us to fight their enemy but not for them to fight for an enemy identified as common to both countries.