Saturday, August 16, 2008 School principal accused of raping girl 21 times
A COMPLAINT for rape was lodged yesterday against a public school principal assigned to a northern Cebu town for allegedly molesting a student 21 times, ultimately getting her pregnant.
The victim, represented by the Legal Alternatives for Women (Law) Inc., is now 18 years old. The assaults allegedly began two years ago.
The first attack allegedly happened on Aug. 16, 2006, after she arrived in school early.
The principal allegedly told her to come and clean his office in the Tabogon school but, while there, dragged her to his comfort room and raped her. Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the principal’s name until he can comment on the allegation or the case reaches court.
After the incident, the school official allegedly threw money at the girl and ordered her not to tell anybody or else he’d have her failed at her subjects so she can’t graduate.
She said she picked the money up and put it on his desk and then returned to her classroom and cried.
“While I extremely detested his violation of me, I felt threatened that I might not be able to graduate if I exposed him for what he did to me,” she said in her affidavit prepared by lawyer Rey Echavez.
“I was very much troubled and confused since I really wanted to finish school. It was the only way I saw a chance to free myself and my family from severe poverty,” she added in the document subscribed before Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Marvin de la Peña.
The incident was allegedly repeated the following month but no longer inside the campus.
She said she was waiting by the side of the national highway for a bus to Cebu City so she could visit her sister when the principal allegedly approached and took the bus with her.
While on board, he told her to come with him when they reached the city but she refused. However, she said, the principal once again threatened to fail her.
Ultimately, she said she was brought to a pension house and was supposedly raped thrice. She said she was kept overnight.
“After that time, in school, (the respondent) raped me about 15 more times on different occasions inside the comfort room of his office. He would summon me to his office to do errands for him. If I refused, he would personally pick me up in my classroom, order me out from class, and instruct our teachers to exempt me,” she said.
Even after graduating in March of 2007, the supposed rapes didn’t stop.
She alleged that the principal, sometime in October 2007, tracked her down while she was working at a pharmacy in Cordova town and had her come with him.
She said he supposedly threatened to tell her father that she was up to no good while working far from home if she didn’t come with him.
He then brought her to another motel and raped her.
He supposedly came back to Cordova the following month and again forced her into a motel.
She found out that she was pregnant in December and told the principal about it two months later.
She said that he then instructed her to have the child aborted or to find a man to have sex with and then claim that it his child. (KNR)
