MANILA – Members of the Progressive Organization of Gay Men and Women held a protest Monday in front of the US Embassy in Manila and demanded the prosecution of an American marine accused in the brutal killing of a Filipino transgender Jennifer Laude.
The group called on the United States government once again to turn over murder suspect Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton to the Philippine government, and desist from manipulating the emerging pieces of evidence vital to the case.
“As long as the US government continues to deploy its murderous war machines and sex maniacs in the Philippines through the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the LGBTs and other sectors will continue to suffer rampant human rights violations behind their token displays of fake democracy,” Gigi Montehermoso, ProGay spokesperson, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The accords allow US military soldiers in the Philippines to hold joint war exercises with Filipino troops.
Progay members maintain that the military agreements between the US and Philippine governments must be abolished to prevent future gruesome crimes that the American military and their ex-military contractors can inflict on Filipinos.
Pemberton, 19, is being held in Camp Aguinaldo and being guarded by US and Filipino soldiers.
He was implicated in the October 11 murder of Laude, 26, who was strangled in a motel room in Olongapo City where his ship, the USS Peleliu was docked. (Mindanao Examiner)
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