Everyone's talking about Nicole

Her name is "Nicole". She's the woman involved in the sensational Subic Rape Case three years ago. Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, the alleged rapist was sentenced to life imprisonment after a highly energized divided Filipino people literally asked for his head on a silver platter. Smith was detained eventually in the US Embassy under the custody of the United States. Last month, the Supreme Court of the Philippines affirmed that the Philippines had jurisdiction over the custody of Smith, not the United States of America.

Suzette Nicolas is the real name of "Nicole".

While the law provides privacy to minors and women who are victims to criminal cases such as rape and other forms of abuse, Suzette Nicolas in a twist of fate, had recanted her testimony in a written affidavit, that shocked the Filipino nation. Suzette's mother Susan Nicolas Franco stood by the affidavit executed by her daughter and added that all she and Nicole wanted was a quiet normal life. There was, in mommy Susan's words, a "need to move on". Nicole or Suzette has gone through hell and back.

Who then is Suzette Nicolas? Before she achieved "fame" from the Subic Rape Case 3 years ago, this Zamboanguena who was a nursing student, had just broken up with her American boyfriend. She had gone to Subic with her cousins and friends and ended up in the nightclub where Smith and his company were drinking. The rest is history...as to whether Suzette was raped or that she had been so inebriated that she played up to Smith is a story that we probably will never really know.

Fast forward in time. After the trial, the sentencing and the issues surrounding who has jurisdiction over Smith and politics behind the Visiting Forces Agreement, Suzette Nicolas comes up with another first - her recanting her rape charges. Mommy Susan had reiterated in the interview that - NO one had faciliated her trip to the United States (yeah right and I'm a dummy. It's like Nicole did not have to go through the US Embassy for her visa and that Obama may just have stamped her passport with a working or tourist or greencard visa), and that YES they received P100,000 ($2,000) for damages (yeah right, what kind of damages, duh?).

Nicole had big dreams and like many Filipinos, the land of milk and honey (never mind the pride and prejudice) and a job in that land of plenty was the ultimate dream. Suzette Nicolas alwas wanted to work as a nurse in the United States. And Suzette had a new boyfriend. Another American service man. And her new boyfriend had "offered hope and help" in overcoming the trauma that keeps haunting her. Finally, a taste of heaven?

I will not offer a psychiatric nor psychologic analysis over the American Boyfriends she has had, but for the record, this is not a woman in need of help over the trauma of rape. What's with the cling-on to American Boyfriends?

She had made her choice. And to abandon the case, well, that was a decision Suzette or Nicole or whatever you want to call her, and her mother and her family has made. It is now time to live the American dream. To let go of this past and move on.

Perhaps, for Suzette, life does go on. But the insult that she has created to more Filipino women who get molested by foreigners on local soil is a stigma that will remain tainted and ingrained on every Filipina. While it may not be fair game, whatever Suzette has done has now become open game for every Tom, Dick and Harry who'd like to poke at every Suzette or Nicole.

An American website referred to Filipinas as LBFM (little brown f*c*ng machines). I thought Nicole or Suzette or whatever her name was, in her testimony and the conviction of Smith, had the American asshole stuff his mouth with his own d*ck. Now it's the other way around. Those LBFMs are here to stay.

"Hey Joe. How much you want Joe?"