Filipino woman says rape by Marine ruined her life

MANILA, July 13 (Reuters) A Filipino woman, resuming her testimony against four U S Marines accused of raping her last year, said today she has had sleeping and eating problems and wished she was dead since the attack.

The Marines, being held by the U S embassy in Manila, deny the charges filed in December, claiming they were being framed after one of them had consensual sex with the woman in a van.

The woman has testified that the sailors took advantage of her after she drank heavily with them at a bar in Subic Bay, a former U S navy base northwest of the capital.

''They took my dignity,'' the woman told a packed courtroom in between sobs. ''He raped me while others are laughing at me. They were acting like they were watching a live rape show.'' The woman, a 22-year-old management accounting graduate at a Roman Catholic-run university in the southern Philippines, said the rape had changed her life and her family's as well.

She said she was losing sleep and her appetite, while trying to hide herself away by avoiding her family and friends.

''I wish I were dead. What they did to me was too much,'' said the woman, who will return to court on Friday to answer questions from lawyers defending the Marines.

''I am so angry at them. I want to kill them.'' The case has generated heavy local media attention and critics argue that a Visiting Forces Agreement, which allows U S soldiers to train and hold joint exercises in the Philippines, gives the Marines too much legal protection.

But the trial has prompted only small protests and is not likely to hurt close ties between the Philippines and the United States, its former colonial master.

The case is expected to finish by August with hearings four times a week.

REUTERS SHB VV1614