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Thursday, April 12, 2007
Probe bureau files raps against priest
By Linette C. Ramos
CEBU CITY -- The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 has finally resolved to charge the priest earlier accused of lascivious conduct while hearing confession at a public high school in Cebu City.
Lawyer Medardo de Lemos, NBI regional chief, filed the complaint against Fr. Benedicto Zozobrado Ejares before the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor Wednesday afternoon.
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Special Investigator Jed Hife said it took her about four months to close the investigation because she opted to wait as long as she could for the priest to answer the subpoena she had sent last February 23.
Ejares never showed up.
“There is no need to explain. I do not know where he is. Whatever the NBI charged him with, what can we do?” Monsignor Achilles Dakay, Cebu Archdiocese liaison officer, told Sun.Star Cebu when sought for comment.
However, the Cebu Archdiocese website lists only a Fr. Benjamin (not Benedicto) Ejares assigned as parish priest of the Sta. Lucia Parish in Asturias town.
“We are respectfully transmitting herewith, for your appropriate action, the result of our investigation...with the recommendation that Benedicto Ejares y Zozobrado be charged and prosecuted,” de Lemos said in a letter to City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon.
Confession
“Several female third year high school students, who were all minors, testified that the priest who heard their confession, later identified as Benedicto Ejares y Zozobrado, inappropriately touched them in different parts of their body, demeaning their intrinsic worth and dignity as a human being,” de Lemos said.
The recommendation was for the filing of a criminal case for seven counts of acts of lasciviousness in relation to the Anti-Child Abuse Law and a separate complaint for sexual harassment.
Lascivious conduct is penalized under Section 339 of the Revised Penal Code, while child abuse is covered by Republic Act (RA) 7610. Sexual harassment is defined by another special law, RA 7877, and covers people who exercise ascendancy over the victims.
Attached to the complaint were the affidavits Hife gathered from seven of the high school students the Catholic priest allegedly treated lasciviously.
According to the affidavits, the victims were taking turns as penitents before Ejares who, together with some other priests, was hearing confession as part of a Life in the Spirit seminar held at the Abellana National High School last November 14, 2006.
7 of 20 girls
The students of Abellana all participated in the seminar organized by the Oasis of Love and the Department of Education.
About 20 students were allegedly harassed but only seven of them submitted sworn affidavits.
The incident prompted the Department of Social Welfare and Development 7 to conduct an inquiry. The NBI later took over the investigation.
According to one student, she saw Ejares place his hands on the shoulders of the penitent ahead of her—he then “toyed” with a strap of the penitent’s bra.
And when it was her turn as penitent, Ejares did the same and even pinched and tickled her forearm.
Ejares allegedly likewise asked if she had a boyfriend and, when she answered yes, whether she already had some “experience.”
“Because of what Ejares did, she hurriedly ran away from the grandstand (where the confession was heard) and cried because she felt abused,” de Lemos’ letter to Sellon read.
‘Demeaning’
Another student said Ejares toyed with the straps of her bra and “kept on touching it.” Another girl recalled that the priest told her that she was so beautiful and she will surely be married some day.
Yet another narrated how the priest tried to pull her closer towards him and said that she was as beautiful as her mother.
Another alleged that the priest groped her further than where her bra straps could be felt beneath her blouse and “moved to her shoulder, down to her forearm and pinched and tickled it.”
And while she was still enumerating her sins, the priest allegedly told her that she will grow more beautiful after confession.
“Clearly, the actions displayed and some words uttered by Ejares in receiving the confession of the minor female students were deeds and words, which debase, degrade or demean the intrinsic worth and dignity of a child as a human beings,” de Lemos said. (Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Dumaguete. (April 12, 2007 issue)
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