Media Camps Out At Olongapo Justice Hall For Pemberton Verdict
The night before the scheduled promulgation of the verdict on a young US marine soldier accused in the killing of a male homosexual last year, local and international media have already camped out in front of the Justice Hall of Olongapo City.
Judge Roline M. Ginez-Jabalde of the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court Branch 74 is expected to render her decision on Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton at 1PM on Tuesday.
City Mayor Rolen C. Paulino has ordered the local police to go on high alert and cooperate well with other govt. agencies tasked in securing peace & order, and also with the American security escorts of Pemberton.
Leftist groups are expected to hold protest rallies in the vicinity of the Justice Hall and elsewhere in Olongapo, which used to host the US Naval Base, Subic Bay until 1992, and where residents are generally pro US Base presence.
“We need to protect not only Pemberton, but everybody,” Paulino said, “we want everyone to be safe, regardless of which side they are with.”
Many Olongapo residents, mainly unsympathetic to Laude, are unhappy with the resulting impact of the case on the local economy as the US Navy has since restricted its personnel from going out for liberty in the city.
Local and international media have been following the case since day one, with various interest groups riding on the issue, including the LGBT community and politicians who are after potential votes they might reap through the media exposure.
The male homosexual, Jeffrey Laude, 26, was found dead slumped inside the toilet of a cheap hotel along Magsaysay Drive on October 11, 2014, after checking-in with Pemberton earlier.
Pemberton, who has been in detention at Camp Aguinaldo over a hundred kilometer away, has not denied killing Laude but claims self-defense in an altercation resulting from his discovery that Laude, whom he picked-up in a nightclub also along Magsaysay Drive, was actually a man pretending to be a woman.
Pemberton also told the court that Laude was alive when he left him.
Both the prosecution and defense have expressed confidence that they will win the case, the answer for which will be finally known in a matter of hours. (VVV)
###