By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: March 18, 2009

MANILA: A Filipino woman who successfully sought the conviction of an American serviceman for raping her in 2005 has changed her story, saying she now has doubts about the events of that night.

The reversal, which the woman made in a sworn statement released to the media Tuesday, has created an uproar in the Philippines, with nationalists accusing the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the United States of pressuring the woman, who was given the pseudonym Nicole to protect her identity, into changing her story.

It is not clear what the impact this development might have on the fate of Daniel Smith, the U.S. serviceman convicted by a court here in 2006 of raping Nicole. Smith, a Marine lance corporal who has since been jailed inside the U.S. Embassy here, is appealing the conviction before the Court of Appeals.

“I can’t help but entertain doubts on whether the sequence of events in Subic last November of 2005 really occurred the way the court found them to have happened,” Nicole said in her statement, referring to the club at a former U.S. military base where she partied with Smith and his friends.

She said she was too drunk that night and might have been “too friendly” with Smith and might have led him on to think that it was all right to have sex with her inside a van.

“My conscience continues to bother me,” she said. “I would rather risk public outrage than do nothing to help the court in ensuring that justice is served.”

Nicole left the Philippines for the United States last week, where she plans to marry her American fiancé, her mother said. Nicole also received 100,000 pesos, or $2,062, from Smith as compensation, according to Smith’s lawyers.

During the trial, Nicole said she had been raped and had been treated “like a pig” by Smith and his fellow servicemen and that she wanted nothing but the death penalty for him. The case became a rallying point for nationalists who wanted Manila to abrogate an agreement that allows U.S. troops in the Philippines.

With Nicole’s statement, many nationalists now fear that the Philippine Senate may drop plans to review the agreement. Senators had promised to review the pact after Washington failed to turn Smith over to Philippine custody despite a Supreme Court order.

Renato Reyes Jr., secretary general of the nationalist group Bayan, said Nicole’s reversal “should be seen in the context of the U.S. and Arroyo government’s efforts to preserve” the military agreement “at all cost.” Reyes’s group will hold a protest rally at the U.S. embassy on Saturday.

Nicole’s statement has elicited sharp reactions among Filipinos, with many feeling deceived by her. In one community in Manila, four people were stabbed on Wednesday after a melee erupted while they were debating her case, police said.

The U.S. Embassy in Manila is consulting with American government legal experts in Washington on the case, an embassy spokeswoman, Rebecca Thompson, told The Associated Press, without elaborating.