Friday, January 12, 2007 Malilong: Let the girl and the priest be By Frank Malilong Jr. The Other Side
ONE of the most celebrated cases in Cebu in the ‘70s was the complaint for adultery that a businessman filed against his wife and her alleged paramour. All the parties came from prominent families: I have never seen so many mestizos and mestizas seated on the front row of the courtroom; and the lawyers were among the best in the country.
As in all sensational trials, the courtroom was always packed not only with relatives and supporters but mostly with curiosity seekers wanting to listen to salacious details of the supposed extra-marital affair. I enjoyed a vantage view through an open door from the judge’s chamber because his sheriff, who was a friend, explained to him that I was a law student trying to learn trial technique, which was, of course, only half true.
At one point during the direct examination of the prosecution’s star witness, she was asked if there were other trysts that she knew other than those that were the subject of the case. The defense counsel jumped to his feet. “Evidence that one did or did not do a certain thing at one time,” he thundered, “is not admissible to show that he did or did not do the same thing at another time.”
But His Honor waved him off. “Never mind,” he said, “the Court would like to hear more.”
Many people are dismayed that the complainant in the Danao rape case (which the prosecutors downgraded to child abuse) against Fr. Joey Belciña has chosen not to pursue it any further. Now, they moan, we will never be able to know the truth.
The truth, my foot! All that we really wanted, after months of titillating but incomplete media reports that only served to whet up our appetites, was to hear more. We were not interested in the truth but in juicy details of the alleged sexual liaison between priest and young girl to feed our prurient halves.
For if we haven’t been so blinded by our desire to hear more, how could we have missed the truth of a young girl wearied by the delirium that whirled around her since the day she decided to tell her story? Or of a man of the cloth completely stripped of his privacy in the media circus that followed her accusation?
No, we will never know for sure if he raped her. But does it really matter? She has chosen to move on, she says. Fr. Joey has asked for forgiveness but not from her, at least not publicly. In any case, she did not say that she has forgiven him. That, according to her, should be left to God.
They have suffered enough from the glare of publicity that hounded them since day one. Theirs was like the fate of a fish in an aquarium except that at least the glass enclosures ensure that the fish cannot hear anything said about them, if they could hear at all. And now they have chosen to seek refuge in the vagueness of words. Let’s respect that.
Their lives will never be the same again, that’s for sure. But let them pick up the pieces. And after having savaged them with our perverse curiosity, the least that we can do now is to keep a safe a distance. We have heard enough.
