CARLOS H. CONDE   BIO   |   MORE POSTS

In her Facebook note on Nicole, my friend Inday lashed out at those who are dragging the rape survivor through the mud because of her affidavit that casts doubt on her recollection of the rape. She pointed out that “many raped women have crumbled in the face of much, much less…”

“We in the media and people’s organizations,” Inday wrote, ” know of tortured folk recanting on earlier testimony. It doesn’t make them allies of evil men; it simply means there were factors heavy enough to crush determination and courage.”

Ah, but here’s the rub: Nicole’s case is different from the other victims of similar violations because Nicole had already won her case when she signed the affidavit.

This is not about one person accepting money or a US visa in order to retreat from a case that had not yet been decided. This is not about a woman who faced unimaginable odds to get justice and so buckled under tremendous pressure. Just as she had gone through much, much worse than many rape victims, Nicole also achieved something that many, many of them could only dream of: the conviction of their violator.

We can only speculate as to why Nicole changed her tune at this point, thus helping Smith in the process to try to overturn the conviction that she had fought so hard to achieve.

Correct me if I’m wrong but most other rape victims who successfully sent their rapists to jail do not enter into a compromise with the convict to overturn the conviction. That Smith is “jailed” in an air-conditioned quarter inside the US embassy is a related but another matter. The point is that, because of Smith’s conviction, Nicole got her dignity back.

And I’m still trying to understand why she had to lose it so quickly again.

Nicole had no reason to sign the affidavit — unless, that is, it was made as a condition for the approval, for instance, of a US visa, which, apparently to her, is the only way for her and her family to go back to normal life. Going to the United States, after all, has always been her and her family’s dream, even before the rape occurred, according to Nicole’s mother.

We cannot begrudge Nicole and her family for thinking that America will save them, regardless of the temptation to think ill of them for not seeing the tragic irony in that but for refusing to accept the fact that what happened to her is inextricably linked to an onerous agreement with that country. “Give her her own humanity,” her mother told the Inquirer. “Let’s not attach any issues like the VFA or the US presence to her case.”

True, Nicole did not apply to be the mascot of the anti-VFA crusade but to fail or to refuse to transcend her personal plight into its larger meaning betrays not so much the inability of the anti-VFA people to educate her and her family about the evils of the agreement but a pigheadedness on her part.

Sure, she can always claim that her poverty and her dreams are paramount and we certainly should not crucify her for that. But for her to use her victimization now not only to achieve that dream but also to, in effect, bamboozle a movement that works so hard to advocate not only her interests but also those of countless Filipinos is, at the very least, crass.

We can be politically correct about this whole thing and proclaim that Nicole does not deserve the vilification she’s getting and that to question what she did would be a slap in the face of all the other women who suffered the same fate. Or we can look at it for what it is: she grabbed the opportunity dangled in front of her because that would solve her troubles.

Sadly, most other victims of rape do not have the same options and opportunities that Nicole had, like going to the United States to restart their lives.

And besides, as I said, she already made her point. At the time she signed the affidavit, which is couched in language that did not quite contradict her earlier assertions about being raped but offers enough reasonable doubt that Smith’s lawyers can work with before the Court of Appeals, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

To be sure, she deserves all the sympathy, support and prayers that we can throw her way but let’s not gloss over the fact that Nicole not only set back the cause against the VFA but insulted as well the other women and Filipinos who have fallen victim to the crimes of foreigners who continue to think of our country as their playground. Her rape robbed her of her dignity; her affidavit robbed the country of its self-respect.

However, Inday is right: Nicole is not the enemy. A regime that has no compunction about selling its peoples’ souls to the devil is the enemy. An unequal relationship with America is the enemy. An economic malaise that forces a violated woman to prostitute her misfortune is the enemy.

But by her action, Nicole just made the enemy even more formidable. And this is what rankled many of us.