HOW has it come to this?
If a nine-year-old Grade 2 pupil from Barangay Talaga, Argao is to be believed, she was gang-raped by six construction workers in the afternoon of March 25, or last Monday. And one of the perpetrators was her uncle.
When she told her parents and neighbors about the incident, they allegedly did not believe her. But the girl found an ally in her teacher who thought otherwise and reported the matter to authorities.
Police were forced to arrest four of the suspects, including the uncle, last Tuesday night, March 26, because they “observed” that the parents did not plan to file a complaint.
Now, they’re consulting the Department of Social Welfare and Development 7 to determine specific charges against the “complicit” parents.
The uncle allegedly confessed to the crime, saying the alleged victim had seduced him into taking advantage of her because she sat on his lap while he and his companions were having a drinking session on the day in question. The three other suspects, though, vehemently denied the accusation.
The girl was said to have been brought to the Pink Room of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City to be examined last Wednesday, March 27, but the report did not say if the results confirmed her claims.
The arrest of the four suspects came in the wake of President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to rearrest the 17-year-old ex-boyfriend of 16-year-old Christine Lee Silawan, whose half-naked, mutilated body was discovered on a vacant lot in Barangay Bankal in Lapu-Lapu City last March 11.
Did that, in any way, influence the decision of Argao Police Chief Rolan Aliser to take into custody the rape suspects?
Does the girl have a history of making up stories? Why didn’t her parents and her neighbors believe her?
Either way, police have to tread carefully in their investigation. An entire family’s future is in their hands.
Aliser told the media the girl was traumatized because “she was often silent during an interview with an officer from the Women and Children’s Protection Desk.”
Apparently, police officials now also have a degree in psychology.