Now that everybody is speculating on why Nicole made her recantation, I might as well jump in.

Nicole did not write that affidavit; a lawyer did. It is too well written, too neat; it puts everything together to put reasonable doubt in the rape case against Daniel Smith. Only a lawyer could have done it. Most likely, Nicole only signed it.

Who was that lawyer, then? Well, definitely, it was not Nicole?s lawyer, Evalyn Ursua. Nicole had just dismissed her.

Who then? Whoever it was, he did a good (?) job of trying to have Smith eventually acquitted based on reasonable doubt. It looks like the work of a defense lawyer. He did not do it for Nicole, nor in the interest of justice. He did it for Smith. And Nicole signed it in the office of Smith?s lawyers. So draw your own conclusions.

Why did Nicole sign it after enduring a grueling trial and trying so hard to have Smith convicted? More money? Possible, but not likely. A US visa, a job in the US, even the promise of American citizenship later? More probable. To many Filipinos, a US visa and American citizenship is like going to heaven. But if her new American boyfriend is going to marry her, as her mother claimed, then she would have become a US citizen without even trying. That would be the culmination of all her childhood dreams, according to her mother. Then she can petition for her mother and the rest of her family to come to God-bless-America and they will all live there happily ever after. It is nothing less than a fairy tale come true for many poor Filipino families, better than winning the jackpot in the lotto.

But would that lone affidavit secure the acquittal of Smith? It being a legal question, inevitably there would be many contradictory opinions about it. (Put 10 lawyers together and there will be 10 different opinions on a single legal question. Yet they all studied the same laws in school, so why do they have different opinions?)

Former Sen. Jovito Salonga and University of the Philippines law professor Harry Roque said that since the affidavit was not presented during the 2006 trial and was never identified and attested to by Nicole, ?it is just a mere scrap of paper.? They said the Court of Appeals now considering Smith?s appeal should treat it as a scrap of paper and throw it where it belongs?the wastebasket.

?Under the law on evidence applicable in the Philippines and the United States,? Salonga and Roque added, ?an affidavit is hearsay unless the other party is accorded the right to cross-examine the affiant.?

State Prosecutor Hazel Decena-Valdez said ?the evidence is already there. What transpired during the trial would be the basis (of the CA?s deliberations).?

Judge Benjamin Pozon, the Makati trial court judge who convicted Smith, said Nicole?s recantation would not necessarily lead to Smith?s acquittal. He explained that ?in general court procedures, a retraction made by a complainant in a criminal case would not automatically cause the appellate court to reverse the ruling made by a lower court.?

Pozon said: ?I doubt if the court will just believe the recantation ? But if the court has doubts on the case, the recantation would just confirm the court?s doubt in the sincerity of the complainant.?

In practice, members of the CA ?review all the statements of witnesses and the evidence presented by the prosecution and defense panels during the trial in the lower court,? Pozon said. Nicole is just a complaining witness, he added, ?there may be other grounds that the court will still consider in its [evaluation] of the case.?

But Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said that the appellate court taking judicial cognizance of Nicole?s recantation might become a factor in the case. The court may be persuaded to reopen the trial for admission of new evidence, he said.

As I see it, considering the realities, Smith?s conviction will eventually be reversed. After all, it is the great, mighty America versus a little dirt-poor country like the Philippines that looks up to Uncle Sam for loans and every little help it needs, where a mere telephone call by its President sends our own little President and her whole government into a tizzy. There would be discreet pressure on the President, the Court of Appeals, and even the Supreme Court if the case reaches it, and they will all realize that the quality of mercy is not restrained when it is Uncle Sam asking for it. After all, don?t you pity a young patriotic American soldier ready to give his life for his country wrongly convicted of rape when he only mistook the too-friendly attentions of Nicole as an invitation to sex?

Will Nicole?s flight to the US result in a review or even abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement? Not likely under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. One call from Obama and she would come running and torpedo any review. But when there is a change of presidency, it might. Let us look at the lessons of the past.

During the administration of Ms Arroyo?s father, President Diosdado Macapagal, the shooting to death of a Baluga tribesman in Clark Air Base led to a series of stories by a small afternoon newspaper, The Evening News, which called for a renegotiation of the RP-US Military Bases Agreement. Macapagal initially played deaf and blind but when the other newspapers took up the clamor and two more Filipino fishermen were shot dead by American servicemen, this time in Subic, Macapagal was left with no choice but to renegotiate the bases treaty. That led to the new treaty that was later abrogated by the Senate under Salonga as Senate president, and the Americans had to leave all their bases in the Philippines.

So don?t discount a young girl like Nicole abused by an American moving mountains like the VFA.