ManilaMailDC.Net - Lower Raps on Marines

MANILA – A government prosecutor has resigned from a rape case against four US Marines after Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales’ decided to reduce the charges against three of the defendants.
Olongapo City Prosecutor Prudencio Jalandoni told newsmen he was not satisfied with Gonzalez’s decision to downgrade the rape charges against Lance Corporals Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis, and Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier to mere accessories.

Arraignment of the Marines was held April 28.

Jalandoni said he felt he would be ineffective as a member of the prosecution panel because he will keep on “worrying about whether [I] may be inconsistent with the position of the Secretary.” “With that kind of development, your initiative and momentum will be stunted. You become frustrated and disappointed,” Jalandoni also told The Associated Press.
“I was thinking, what if she was a relative, or my wife, or my daughter, does it mean that we cannot go after them? And it can happen to anybody. Just because they are Americans. they are above the law?” he said.
Gonzales said April 18 he found no conspiracy surrounding the alleged rape of a 22-year-old Filipino woman on November 1 and decided to keep only one Marine-Lance Corporal Daniel Smith — as the principal defendant, who could face capital punishment.
But Jalandoni maintained there was enough evidence supporting the earlier conspiracy indictment in which “the act of one is the act of all.”
Gonzalez is unfazed by Jalandoni’s resignation from the prosecution panel and said that he would wait for his formal letter. Jalandoni heads the panel, along with Makati City Prosecutor Feliciano A. Aspi. Jalandoni said he also wants to focus on the “heavy workload” his office has with other cases.
A spokesman for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo backed Gonzales, saying the Department of Justice did its job “objectively and impartially.” “This is not a political issue affecting our relations with the United States as both countries are one in the search for truth and justice,” said Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye. “Let us keep our emotions at bay and allow the light of reason and fact to unravel the truth.”