US marines' lawyer mocks witness' command of English

A defense lawyer for four US marines accused of raping a 22-year-old Filipino woman in Subic last November turned to questioning the proficiency in English of an investigator who testified for the prosecution – only to come up with his own boo-boo in Thursday's hearing. Defense lawyer Jose Justiniano asked Ramon Paje, the Subic investigator who first conducted a probe of the incident, if the meaning of the phrases “I can hardly see you" is “hindi masyadong maaninag" and “I can hardly hear you" is “hindi masyadong marinig", to which the prosecution witness replied “maybe." Justiniano emphasized the word “hardly" because Paje earlier said the phrase “hardly intoxicated" in his report was supposed to mean “lasing na lasing" (very drunk). A visibly annoyed Paje retorted: "I told you earlier, I wasn’t fluent in English." But the defense lawyer himself later came up with his own boo-boo. "Do you understand what you wrote in your report? Do you understand the words Caucasian, assaulted, bar-hopping, baggy jeans?," Justiniano asked. “Did you finish your studies?" And when he asked Paje what his educational attainment was and the investigator answered "tertiary", Justiniano began a question with “if you say you finished third-year college...", drawing laughter from the crowd present at the Makati court hearing. The prosecution has accused four US marines – Lance Corporals Daniel Smith, Dominic Duplantis and Keith Silkwood and Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier – of raping 22-year-old "Nicole" (not her real name). The defense has maintained that Smith had consensual sex with Nicole.-GMANews.TV