Sunday, July 06, 2008 Law 'frees' boy, 11, facing rape rap
THE Office of the Provincial Prosecutor has dismissed the rape charges filed against an 11-year-old boy accused of raping a seven-year-old neighbor despite evidence supporting that sexual molestation did occur and despite the boy’s own admission.
Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Nelia Sistoso penned the two-page disposition that threw out the criminal complaint and instead referred the “minor offender” to the local social welfare and development officer of Ginatilan, Cebu, where the incident took place.
“Rape is a savage and bestial act that violates a woman’s person in the most grievous and odious way imaginable,” she said, quoting the Supreme Court in the case of People vs. Enrique Ramirez.
‘No liability’
The “abomination,” she pointed out is revolting and perpetrators of this “outrage” are “depraved and evil” and must be “brought to the crucible of justice.”
However, she said, the passage of Sen. Francisco Pangilinan’s drafted Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, formally entitled Republic Act (RA) 9344, exempts children under 15 years old from any criminal liability over any act.
And in lieu of criminal proceedings, the offender is to undergo an intervention program instead.
The Ginatilan police office lodged the complaint upon the insistence of the victim’s parents.
The girl’s mother said the incident happened last April 17. She said she sensed something wrong when her daughter came home late from playing outside and looked very tired.
The girl then complained of pain when urinating.
The mother saw that there was blood in the girl’s underwear. The child’s vagina was also swollen.
The girl then told her mother that a boy, whose family hails from Badian town but is now in Ginatilan to do farm work, did it to her.
According to SPO1 Arnold Omaña of the Ginatilan Police Station, the boy admitted having intercourse with the girl.
Just playing
The boy said he was merely playing basketball with the girl’s brother when she reportedly arrived and asked that he accompany her. So he went along.
When they reached a secluded field, the girl reportedly told him to lie down and he supposedly “just obeyed.”
The police referred the girl’s parents to the town’s social welfare officer for assistance and advised them to have her undergo a medical examination.
The test confirmed lacerations in the girl’s hymen.
“(Regardless of) how outrageous the crime was, unfortunately due to the passage of RA 9344 increasing the age of criminal responsibility from under nine to 15 years old and below, the said minor cannot be prosecuted for the crime charged,” Sistoso’s disposition said. (KNR)
