Thursday, February 02, 2006
Pa meted 2 death penalties for raping daughter
BAGUIO CITY -- A Benguet judge has imposed the extreme penalty of death on a 46-year-old laborer for raping his daughter twice and impregnating her when she was just 13 years old.
Judge Francis Buliyat of Benguet's Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 9 ruled that "the crime of rape, more so incestuous rape, is a crime abhorred and condemned by civilized humanity. Incestuous rape relegates the perpetrator to a level even lower than animals, as animals would in fact protect rather than defile or hurt their young."
Court records showed that in February 1998, Leonardo (last name withheld), armed with a knife, entered the room where the victim and her three-year-old younger brother were sleeping in their house in Bokod, Benguet and raped her.
The victim said she did not shout for help because Leonardo threatened to stab her if she did so. She added that she did not tell anyone of her ordeal because of the threat.
She said she and her younger brother were left behind in their one-room house because she was informed that her parents and her other siblings were going to sleep in the farm.
The second incident reportedly happened on the fourth week of April in 1998 while she was staying at a Benguet school's dormitory, also in Bokod, where she was enrolled for her secondary schooling, an hour's walk from their house. The victim said she was resting when her father entered her room, again carrying a knife and threatening her. She said she shouted for help but nobody came to her rescue.
The victim got pregnant as a result of the second rape, giving birth to a baby boy.
Leonardo, however, denied raping his daughter twice or impregnating her, claiming he even scolded and threatened to hit her when he learned that she's pregnant, because he thought all the while that his daughter, the second of his seven children, was studying.
But the judge ruled otherwise. "There could be no doubt that based on the evidence adduced, these are cases of incestuous rapes, the accused being the biological father of the complainant. Accused never (contradicted) the fact. The fact that complainant became pregnant after the rapes and she gave birth subsequently were not also disputed," he said.
"The complainant would not have filed and prosecuted the two counts of incestuous rapes against her own father if it were not true. The Supreme Court (SC) has time and again deferred to the testimonies of rape victims by their close relatives, as normally, no child would want her own relative, more so her father, to be put to death if the complaints were not true," added Buliyat in his decision.
Article 226-B of the Anti-Rape Law of 1997 (Republic Act 8353) states that "the death penalty shall be imposed if the crime of rape is committed, when the victim is under 18 years old and the offender is a parent ascendant, step parent, guardian, relative by affinity within the third civil degree and common law spouse of the parent of the victim." (CGC of Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)
(February 2, 2006 issue)
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