Philippines deports U.S. Marine pardoned for murdering transgender woman

MANILA - A U.S. Marine convicted of killing Filipino transgender woman Jennifer Laude was released on Sunday after being granted a pardon by President Rodrigo Duterte and deported from the country.

Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton, who served little more than half of a 10-year sentence for homicide, flew back to the United States on a military aircraft at 9:14 a.m. The deportation was arranged by the U.S. Embassy, according to the Immigration Bureau.

Pemberton's lawyer Rowena Flores said he "spent much time contemplating the many errors in his ways" and extended his sympathies to the Laude family. "He wishes he had the words to express the depth of his sorrow and regret," she said, adding that the U.S. government paid for the return trip.

Pemberton's pardon and release was met with outrage from Laude's family, human rights advocates, and the LGBTQ community.

Julita Laude, Jennifer's mother, said in a statement that she felt double-crossed as Duterte had verbally promised her family Pemberton would not walk free under his term. She added they had even received financial support from him.

"Ten years in prison is all we are asking ... Ten years!" she said. "It's a short time to pay in jail for the life of my daughter."

The Philippines' Immigration Bureau said Pemberton is officially blacklisted and cannot return to the country.

The 2014 killing of Laude drew widespread attention, particularly on the long-standing alliance between the Philippines and its former colonizer, the United States.

Laude's supporters have also pointed out that Pemberton enjoyed special treatment during his confinement and then with his early release.

While other convicts languished in the country's notoriously overcrowded prisons, Pemberton spent his sentence in a cell in the Philippine military headquarters. The arrangement was made possible by the Visiting Forces Agreement, a bilateral accord that governs procedures involving U.S. military personnel in the Philippines.

Pemberton met Laude at a bar in Olongapo City, north of Manila, in October 2014 after the Marines arrived for joint military exercises. She was later found dead in a motel room, her head over the toilet. Local media reported that Pemberton, then 19, admitted to choking Laude, 26, after discovering she was transgender. He claimed he acted in self-defense, but a police investigation identified his actions as a hate crime. He was charged with murder and convicted of homicide in 2015.

In the past month, Pemberton's camp sought his early release by citing his good conduct in detention - a move that was set to be contested by the Laude family and the Philippine Department of Justice. But in a surprise decision, Duterte granted Pemberton absolute pardon on Monday - superseding any court decision.

Various organizations gathered on Friday to condemn the pardon, with protesters chanting "Justice for Jennifer!" and "Pardon for Pemberton, a betrayal to the nation!" Poster illustrations were set up showing Pemberton and Laude, with her head dunked in a toilet.

"I've had a good cry ... but today is for fighting," said Naomi Fontanos, an activist and executive director of Gender and Development Advocates Filipinas. The nonprofit, led by trans women, is abbreviated to "Ganda," a Filipino word that means "beauty" and is incidentally a nickname of Jennifer's.

Duterte's critics see the pardon as bending to U.S. interests, even as the president himself has harshly criticized the country and its leaders. Duterte, who shifted his foreign policy away from the West and toward China, even said he would terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement - though that plan was suspended in June.

Fontanos slammed Duterte's previous anti-American rhetoric as "all for show" and "a ruse."

"We'll continue our fight. The road will be long, we know it," she said. "I hope this will be a wakeup call for how treacherous this president is."

Duterte's own Cabinet officials and even outgoing U.S. Ambassador Sung Kim were reportedly surprised by the pardon. Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr. told the local press that the United States did not request it.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, a former lawyer of the Laude family, said on Thursday that the decision was made for a "higher national interest."

But political analyst Aries Arugay said he does not put it past the president - known for his mercurial temper - to have had a "knee-jerk reaction." If the pardon was meant to be strategic, he added, it was "crude and unsophisticated."

Arugay pointed out that some U.S. politicians, particularly those critical of the Philippine government's bloody drug war, would want to distance themselves from cases involving human rights abuse - including the Laude killing and Pemberton's release.

"From the point of view of a supposed foreign policy of a small sovereign nation, it's a total mess," said Arugay, also noting Duterte's previous admonitions against the United States.

"If Democrats get the White House in November, then our human rights record will be this government's reckoning."

At the Friday rally, the Laude family lawyer Virginia Suarez backed calls for the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement and other military deals between the Philippines and United States. She said there was another struggle at stake - "not just for human rights, but for our democracy."

“As long as there are ‘security’ agreements - which ironically make us insecure ... there will be more Pembertons and more Jennifers,” said Suarez.