what a shocker naman talaga.   it was bad enough hearing, first, that she had fired her lawyer evalyn ursua AND that she had left for the u.s., of all places.   it got progressively more scandalizing as the news trickled out that she had settled with smith for a hundred thou php and *omgwtf* that she had recanted *gasp*!

a day later i’m clearer about that 100k — it’s in compliance naman pala with the court order that found smith guilty of rape and liable to nicole for civil (50K php) and moral (50K php) damages, so that’s fine.   whether she left or she stayed, she had that money coming to her.   in my book she deserved more, and if she did get more, then good for her.

i’m also clearer about the so-called recantation, which is not a recantation at all — shame on everyone who calls it so.   nicole did not recant.    to recant would have been to deny now her original testimony.   to recant would have been to say now that it was all a lie, she wasn’t drunk, she remembers it all, the sex was consensual.   SHE SAID NOTHING OF THE SORT.

at most nicole ruminates on old questions raised by the defense at the trial.   she acknowledges that under the influence of alcohol she may have behaved inappropriately — which may have led smith to think that she wanted sex.   also she considers the defense line that if smith had intended to rape her he would not have so openly carried her out of the club into the van for all the world to see, so maybe he thought it was consensual?

so she behaved inappropriately under the influence of mixed drinks — but she also says, so did others in the club where there was a lot of kissing and hugging going on,  and, i’m sure, dirty dancing, and no one else got raped.    i think smith was just really horny and on white arrogant macho mode — youdon’tmesswithmeandgetawaywithitshit — never mind that the girl clearly was so drunk she couldn’t walk straight, much less do anything of her own volition.   the affidavit only makes this clearer.

finally she asks, if i was so drunk why did i suddenly become un-drunk when they dumped me on the sidewalk?   aba, kahit sino yata mahihimasmasan, matatauhan, pag biglang nagbago ang takbo ng mga pangyayari, from private to public, from warm to cold, from sounds to silence.   her alcohol-drowned mind was on party mode, even the van was on party mode, with music and cheering and clapping.   when she was dumped, the music stopped, the party was over, she’s suddenly alone, lying on a public sidewalk — the semento must have felt cold to her naked butt, and people were gathering around, someone was calling her a bitch, time to come to her senses, a matter of self-defense, of survival, what a rude awakening.

so, again, that affidavit wasn’t a retraction, rather, an affirmation, by which account, smith is no less guilty of rape.    let’s give nicole credit for managing to please smith’s camp — enough to acquire a u.s. visa perhaps — but without recanting.   that took some smarts.   good for us.

i’m sorry she’s gone but she has her own life to live, her own karma to work out.   if she were my daughter, like susan i would let her go, even insist on it.   obviously she has a karmic connection with america (american soldiers in particular).   until (like any fil-am) she works that out, she cannot be expected to do more for inang lupa than she has already done for the anti-vfa campaign.   mabuhay si nicole.