Pemberton’s pardon an ‘affront’ to LGBTQI community —CHR

President Rodrigo Duterte’s granting of absolute pardon to US Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton, convicted for the 2014 killing of Filipino transgender woman Jennifer Laude, is an affront to the LGBTQI community, the Commission on Human Rights said Wednesday.

“Pemberton committed one of the most brutal crimes against a transwoman in the country. Granting a presidential pardon to such a felon is an affront to the LGBTQI community,” CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit, Focal Commissioner on Gender Equality and LGBTQI Human Rights, said in a statement.

She added it is also an affront to the Laude family.

While the CHR recognizes the scope of the President’s power to grand pardon, Dumpit said there is still an obligation to account for the exercise of the pardon, “to wield this power with prudence and sensitivity to the plight of victims.”

“Killings of transgender persons continue to rise worldwide. In the Philippines, they continue to be victims of violence and harassment,” she said.

“Protections in law and procedure remain scant and often, members of the LGBTQI communities face systemic barriers in accessing justice,” she added.

Dumpit also said Pemberton’s express pardon also exhibited double standards, lack of fairness and the absence of empathy for the LGBTQI community.

“The CHR joins the call for the respect and protection of the rights of LGBTQI community, especially those who continue to face abuse, discrimination, and indignities because of their Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC),” she said.

Meanwhile, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines said the granting of absolute pardon to Pemberton has shown “how little the president values the life of a transgender and a Filipino.”

“The fact that the victim of Pemberton is a Filipino shows how little regard is placed on our sovereignty,” NCCP general secretary Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza said in a statement.

“Jennifer’s death is a glaring image of how the US military presence exacerbates the vulnerabilities of women, children, and LGBT in their own communities. As long as they are here, our country won’t be a safe space for the Filipinos,” he said.

Marigza said the pardon is an injustice, not only to the Laude family, but to all Filipinos.

Marigza said Pemberton was granted special treatment— a treatment not accorded to ordinary Filipino convicts — while serving his sentence.

“This should have been enough basis for not to set him free during his supposed incarceration. It is like they killed Jennifer again and deeply wounded her family and loved ones anew. It also belittles the rights and dignity of our LGBT community that are pushing for justice and equality and our sovereignty as a nation,” he said.

Moreover, Marigza said the pardon is an act of double-standard amid the calls of rights groups to release low-risk, sick, and elderly prisoners, including those who were wrongfully imprisoned because of their political beliefs, as a humanitarian act to the pandemic.

“If the president can grant absolute pardon to murderers like Pemberton who has not shown any remorse for his deed, then surely he can also free prisoners of conscience whose ‘crimes’, if they can be called that, are for defending the rights of the poor and marginalized,” he said.

In granting the pardon, Duterte claimed Pemberton was treated unfairly because it was not his fault that Philippine authorities did not record his good conduct.

Under the law on good conduct and time allowance, inmates must attend various activities or programs inside the jail facility to become productive while serving their sentence, including alternative learning systems, religious activities, to benefit from it.

Pemberton, however, was never jailed alongside other inmates and was alone in his detention center inside the Armed Forces of the Philippines headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo.

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Duterte consulted him before granting the pardon. —Ma. Angelica Garcia/KG, GMA News