Air Force captain-rapist escapes death due to technicality

A convicted rapist has escaped the death penalty after prosecutors failed to prove that he was an uncle of his 12-year-old victim.

On appeal, the Supreme Court lowered the penalty of Air Force Capt. Marcial Llanto from death to life imprisonment because his relation to the victim was not stated in the criminal information.

In a 25-page decision, the high tribunal ruled that there was nothing to support claims that Llanto was the uncle of the victim, which would have satisfied the special qualifying circumstances of relationship.

"Consequently, because of the defect in the information, the accused can only be held liable for simple rape," the decision said.

The Supreme Court said prosecutors should have alleged in the information filed with the Pasay City Regional Trial Court that the victim was related to Llanto either by blood or marriage within the third civil degree.

Court records show Llanto raped the victim between 1996 and 1999 after her grandmother entrusted her to Llanto and his wife in 1995.

Llanto, who was officer-in-charge of the Air Force holding center at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, is the brother-in-law of the victim’s father.

The victim, whose parents separated when she was six months old, swore in her affidavit submitted to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that Llanto last raped her on Nov. 2, 1999.

On Nov. 11, 1999, she revealed her ordeal to her aunt, who brought her to the NBI for medical examination to determine if she had actually been raped.

During the trial, the victim told the court that she was not able to resist Llanto because he would always tie her hands and rape her at knifepoint.

However, Llanto said the victim was just getting back at him after he and his wife berated her after catching her stealing money from them.

Llanto said the victim accused him of rape at the instigation of her mother and an alleged NBI agent named Silverio Escobar to try to extort money from him.

Llanto said NBI medico-legal findings showed the victim’s hymen was still intact and that she had no extra-genital injury in contrast to her testimony that she had been raped several times.

In upholding Llanto’s conviction, the Supreme Court said it was possible for the victim’s hymen to remain intact despite repeated sexual intercourse.

"Jurisprudence is replete with rulings that mere entry of the male organ into the lips of the female organ, without rupture of the hymen or laceration of the vagina, is sufficient to warrant conviction," read the decision.

The high tribunal also said it was difficult to believe Llanto’s alibi as the victim’s testimony was straightforward and very credible.

"This Court has long held that the testimony of a sole eyewitness is sufficient to support a conviction so long as it is clear, straightforward and worthy of credence by the trial court," it said.

"Neither does the self-serving evidence of the accused convince us that the victim was merely instigated by her mother to file the rape complaint to extort his (accused) P500,000 retirement benefits."