To all the members of Justice For Smith: The t-shirts are now available for free.  KIndly text  or call us at 09179016592 and 09229982244 for details. We will start sending out the shirts on January 29, 2007.


This blogsite is for people who supports Lance Corporal Daniel Smith. So to those people who supports the other camp please go to her site and leave messages for her in there. This is not a forum and a site for people to argue. We are just expressing our support for Dan so please respect that. Thank you and May the Good LOrd Bless You.

For all the people who supports Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, thank you so much and God bless us all

To all the people who believe in justice,
 


                         We are asking your support for Lance Corporal Daniel Smith. With a simple signature we can show our support to this young man who is falsely charged with something he did not commit and now being used by other people for their own interest. Let us show that we Filipinos will fight for what we believe is right and the right thing to do is support the real victim, Daniel Smith.

                      God bless us all! God bless Daniel Smith!!
 

BEARING gifts, they traveled from within and outside Metro Manila to wish a jailed United States soldier well.

From as far away as Olongapo City, Pampanga and Cavite to as near as Quezon City, supporters of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith began arriving at the Makati City Jail yesterday afternoon to offer gifts, letters and books to the Marine, convicted for raping a Filipino woman last year.

Delivering on their promised holiday celebration for Smith, members of the Justice for Dan Smith group also lit 23 candles for the soldier, representing each day that Smith has been incarcerated in the local jail.

"He is away from his family, his country, and he is pitiful so we have to help him. I am also a mother with children around his age, and it somehow feels painful for me too. I just want to know the truth," said Ligaya Tauro, 52, a wife of a Philippine Air Force colonel who came all the way from Sangley Point in Cavite.

Among the six women was Frelyn Smith, the 23-year-old wife of a retired US soldier based in the Philippines.

"He [her husband] wanted me to visit him [Daniel Smith] and give him books and a letter from him. He couldn't come here himself because he would only get emotional... He would cry whenever he sees him [on television]," said Frelyn.

She said her husband, Raymond John Smith, 63, believed Daniel John Smith was a relative. Her husband is from Chicago, Illinois, while Daniel Smith is from St. Louis, Missouri.

Aside from a food pack, Frelyn gave the detained soldier books on the military and politics.

"We are growing in numbers now. We have been receiving lots of e-mails from mothers, not just from teenagers, so nobody could claim that we are supporting him just because he is good-looking," said the group's organizer, Grace Santos.

"They would say we are being funded by the US Embassy, but how can that be when we don't even have a banner?" said Santos, apparently in reaction to statements from the camp of the rape victim, "Nicole."

LANCE Corporal Daniel Smith is back in conditions "certainly better than a jail,'' looking forward to a visit from his family this month, and finding comfort in a two-inch stack of Christmas cards from people who believe he is innocent of raping a Filipino woman.

But the convicted US Marine now sleeps in a room different from where he earlier stayed and where his co-accused buddies had claimed seeing "ghosts,'' according to his spiritual adviser, Fr. James Reuter.

The 90-year-old American Catholic priest, who has maintained early on that Smith was wrongfully convicted, shared details of how "Dan'' had settled back into US custody, four days after his controversial, late-night transfer from a Philippine jail.

Reuter said Smith, who had spent 27 days at the crowded Makati City Jail but in a room separate from the other inmates, was "generally in good spirits and cheerful'' about his return to previous quarters in the US embassy.

He said he visited the 21-year-old serviceman at the US embassy in the afternoon of New Year's Eve. He earlier saw Smith four times when the latter was still at the MCJ.

"It was still real incarceration,'' the priest said, noting that two US Marine guards posted outside Smith's room would not allow the soldier past the door. The room itself, as Reuter recalled seeing that day, was practically bare except for a bed.

"But certainly it was better than a jail,'' he added. He felt "no suffocation'' inside the room.

"It made life easier for him,'' Reuter added, noting that Smith had been "in jail in the last 14 months'' since he and four other Marines were accused of raping a Filipino woman. The three other accused were subsequently acquitted.

In his one-hour talk with Smith that afternoon, Reuter said, the soldier mentioned his family's plan to visit him, their arrival tentatively set on January 15 at the earliest.

The priest added that in his own correspondence with the Smith family, who are based in St. Louis, Missouri, "they said they would like to come but are frightened of the media, the crowds, after seeing on TV what happened inside the courtroom.''

The corporal's family was apparently referring to the commotion, a sort of tug-of-war for Smith, which erupted moments after Makati City Judge Benjamin Pozon pronounced him guilty and ordered him temporarily committed to the Makati jail.

Apart from minding the expenses for the trip, "they are afraid they might be manhandled (when they get here) that's why somehow they would like to have security,'' Reuter told the Inquirer in a phone interview.

According to the priest, Dan's family consisted of his parents, an elder brother aged 24, and a younger brother aged 18.

The soldier, an amateur "wrestling champion'' in high school, would teach especially the younger sibling some moves on the mat, Reuter fondly noted.

During the New Year's Eve visit, Smith had also shown him a two-inch stack of Christmas cards he got from people who had expressed "support'' when he was still at the Makati jail.

"He was grateful to everyone'' and did not voice out any complaints about his stay at the jail or "harsh words'' against the rape complainant "Nicole,'' Reuter added.

During Reuter's visit, Smith was staying in the room that earlier held Lance Corporal Chad Carpentier, one of his three co-accused Marines, during their four-month marathon trial.

"I also blessed that room, which used to be Chad's, because the guards said the other three (co-accused) were complaining that they have seen ghosts,'' Reuter said, without elaborating.

                                           

 Reaching out from detention, American rape convict Daniel Smith sent a message of thanks to his supporters who helped him pull through his first jailhouse Christmas through a shower of gifts and goodies, his lawyer said.

       

In a handwritten letter, electronically scanned copies of which were e-mailed to the media by the detained US Marine's lawyer, Smith expressed his gratitude to strangers who sent him treats on Christmas Day and the past weeks. It was not clear if the lawyers had also -emailed the letter to other people.

       

"To all the people who took their time out to send me a card, write me a letter, or drop off a gift over these past couple of weeks. Thank you so much. These things have made the holidays a memorable time. From me and my family, thank you all and God Bless," said the letter.

       

Smith penned the note on his 22nd day at the Makati City Jail (MCJ) upon the advice of his lawyers. The 21-year-old Marine has gained a fan base in the Philippines, among them Filipino wives of American servicemen and expatriates, since he was sent to the MCJ after he was convicted on Dec. 4 of raping a Filipino woman on Nov. 1, 2005