{"id":268053,"date":"2020-09-08T01:38:31","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T05:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=268053"},"modified":"2020-09-08T01:38:31","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T05:38:31","slug":"duterte-not-favoring-pemberton-with-grant-of-pardon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/08\/duterte-not-favoring-pemberton-with-grant-of-pardon\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte \u2018not favoring\u2019 Pemberton with grant of pardon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte talks to the people after holding a meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) core members at the Malago Clubhouse in Malaca\u00f1ang on September 7, 2020. KARL NORMAN ALONZO\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night said he is not favoring convicted US Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton by giving him an absolute pardon.<\/p>\n

\u201cSabi ko<\/em>\u00a0(I said), \u2018It\u2019s my decision to pardon. Correct me if I\u2019m wrong, but\u00a0ito ang tingin ko sa kaso<\/em>\u00a0(What I think about the case). You have not treated Pemberton fairly so\u00a0i<\/em>-release\u00a0ko<\/em>\u00a0(I\u2019ll release him). Pardon.\u2019\u00a0Eh ang<\/em>\u00a0pardon\u00a0walang maka<\/em>-question\u00a0niyan<\/em>\u00a0(If it\u2019s pardon, nobody can question that),\u201d he said in a taped public address.<\/p>\n

Duterte made this remark just hours before Malaca\u00f1ang confirmed that Pemberton, who was convicted for the death of Filipino transgender woman Jennifer Laude, was granted an absolute pardon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not because of that that I pardoned Pemberton. But you know if there is a time where you are called upon to be fair, be fair, be fair,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He clarified that he granted Pemberton absolute pardon because he believed that he was not treated \u201cfairly\u201d while detained because his good conduct time allowance (GCTA) credits were not recorded by Philippine authorities.<\/p>\n

According to Duterte, the government did not know what \u201cfactors\u201d would contribute to deciding on whether or not Pemberton’s GCTA credits should be computed from the time he was detained facing trial, or if it should start after his sentencing for homicide.<\/p>\n

He said there was no record of Pemberton’s detainment when he was held at the Marines garrison, noting that it was not the job of Marines to watch over him at that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAng<\/em>\u00a0(The) Marines never kept a record of the —\u00a0hindi trabaho ng<\/em>\u00a0Marines\u00a0\u2018yan na magbantay kasi hindi \u2018yan sila<\/em>\u00a0(Bureau of Jail Management and Penology)\u00a0o taga<\/em>-Muntinlupa (it\u2019s not the job of the Marines to keep watch because they\u2019re not the BJMP or from Muntinlupa),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Duterte said there was no way to tell Pemberton\u2019s behavior while detained on trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cAng problema nito ganito, sinong magsabi ngayon na noong detinado siya nagkakalat siya sa loob, sumisigaw siya o sinisira niya,<\/em>\u00a0he destroys things?\u00a0Wala eh. Kasi walang listahan. Wala namang nakalagay doon<\/em>\u00a0because\u00a0wala talaga<\/em>\u00a0(The problem here is, who will say that when he was detained he was misbehaving inside — that he was shouting or destroying things? Nobody. It\u2019s not on the list. It\u2019s not written there because there\u2019s none),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said it was not Pemberton\u2019s fault that his GCTA was not recorded.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it is not the fault of Pemberton\u00a0na hindi na na<\/em>-compute (that they failed to compute it) because we should allow him the good character presumption\u00a0kasi wala namang nag<\/em>-report\u00a0na<\/em>\u00a0Marines\u00a0na nagsabi nagwawala siya<\/em>\u00a0(because no Marines reported him for bad behavior),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the Marines could have reported to the Department of Justice (DOJ) if he was misbehaving, but they did not.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, who was the Laude family\u2019s legal counsel, said that granting absolute pardon cleared the issue on whether or not Pemberton was entitled to GCTA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIbig sabihin po niyan makalalaya na po si<\/em>\u00a0Pemberton.\u00a0Wala na pong<\/em>\u00a0issue\u00a0kung siya ay<\/em>\u00a0entitled\u00a0sa<\/em>\u00a0GCTA (good conduct time allowance),\u00a0wala na pong<\/em>\u00a0issue\u00a0kung<\/em>\u00a0applicable\u00a0ba sa kanya yung batas dahil hindi siya nakulong sa<\/em>\u00a0national penitentiary (This means Pemberton will be freed. There will no longer be an issue whether he is entitled to GCTA, there will no longer be an issue whether the law applies to him because he was not detained in the national penitentiary),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He, however, said it does not erase the fact that Pemberton is still a \u201cmurderer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBinura na po ng Presidente kung ano pa yung parusa na dapat ipapataw kay<\/em>\u00a0Pemberton.\u00a0Ang hindi po nabura ng Presidente, ‘yung<\/em>\u00a0conviction\u00a0ni<\/em>\u00a0Pemberton.\u00a0Mamamatay tao pa rin po siya<\/em>\u00a0(The President has erased other penalties imposed on Pemberton. What is not erased is Pemberton\u2019s conviction. He is still a murderer),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pemberton was convicted of homicide on Dec. 1, 2015, for killing Laude in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night said he is not favoring convicted US Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":268054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268055,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268053\/revisions\/268055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}