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thedrifter
09-09-06, 01:58 PM
Fr. Reuter gets flak over ‘seduction’ remarks
The Daily Tribune
09/10/2006

A prominent local Jesuit priest has elicited “shock and dismay” from people for practically saying in an interview with an international newspaper that the young woman who is accusing four US Marines soldiers of having raped her in the former American Naval base in Subic Bay, Olongapo City, Zambales province late last year may have seduced the principal suspect into sexually abusing her.

People who apparently read what Fr. James Reuter had said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune in connection with the case aired their disappointment and disgust on a blog site maintained by supporters of the 22-year-old rape “victim” who hails from

Zamboanga province in the southern region of the country.

“This article turned my stomach and somehow was ashamed for the Jesuit education in the Philippines. It is difficult to separate James Reuter from the Atenean system and his thoughts made me want to hurl (something),” said one who went by the alias “nastypen,” in a comment posted on the blog site of the Nicole Information Bureau (subicrapecase.wordpress.com).

Another reader, “Melba,” said Reuter was acting “more than just a spiritual adviser” to the US Marines accused in the case, or at best may have tended to “overdo such a holy function.”

“To pass judgment on a woman who, witnesses saw, was dumped at the roadside and treated like a pig, scrambling for her clothes and pleading for justice against a brutal act rape is never an act of a spiritual adviser, more so, a Jesuit priest,” “Melba” said.

Another reader, who went by the name “Schumey,” said rape “knows no creed, religion or color,” adding, “After years of admiring him (Reuter), I lost it all in an instant.”

Another one who logged on as “dioseffe” also gave opinion in reaction to Reuter’s statements, saying, “even if you are a prostituted woman, it doesn’t give any justification for you to be raped.”

A lone blogger, who gave his name as “Arnold,” however, took the cudgels for the Jesuit priest on the issue and chided the others for their “mob mentality” by acting as “judge, jury and hangman” to Reuter.

In an interview published in the Sept. 2 issue of the Herald Tribune (online: iht.com), Reuter said he believes the rape “victim” may have seduced Lance Corporal Daniel Smith into assaulting her.

Smith, according to the “victim,” forced himself on her while six other US soldiers watched and cheered him on aboard a van that was cruising around Subic on the night of Nov. 1 last year.

“I think it was seduction...She was 22 and Danny was 19,” the Herald Tribune article written by Seth Mydans quoted Reuter as saying.

Reuter, a 90-year-old priest who has lived in the Philippines more than 70 years and who gained fame for his fondness for the Philippines and for his work in media, described Smith, who is at the center of the rape case, as “the baby boy.”

He also said he does not think the four US Marines are guilty.

The newspaper also quoted Evalyn Ursua, one of the private prosecutors in the case, as having said that she “felt pity” for Reuter for allegedly allowing himself to be used by the “other side.”

“I think he is allowing his position to be used as a propaganda ploy to deodorize the accused. And for that reason alone I have lost all respect for him. Obviously his nationality is a paramount factor of his being on that side,” Ursua said.

Reuter, however, said he was not being biased because he is also an American but because “I think those guys are getting a pretty rough deal.”

“The poor guys have nobody to back them up. They are nice guys, clean cut guys. Especially the one who is going to get it in the neck, Danny Smith,” he further said.

Having bought in in 2003, the New York Times owns the International Herlad Tribune. Jun P. Yap

Ellie