Police say talk with Marianeth’s family suggests incestuous rape

Police authorities probing the case of Marianeth Amper, the 12-year-old girl from Davao City who reportedly killed herself by hanging last Nov. 2, yesterday said they have gathered some evidence pointing to the angle of incestuous rape after they interviewed the family of the victim.

Asked by Vice President Noli de Castro during his radio program over dzMM on what they found out after talking with each member of the Amper household, Talomo police chief Superintendent Matthew Baccay said: “We have gathered something. When we called them, our point then is to establish incestuous rape.”

Baccay, however, cut his statement and asked if he could conceal some details at this point since they only have the interview as their basis and they still need corroborating evidence.

“It would be unfair to that person if he would immediately become a suspect,” Baccay added.

Amper’s death stirred a national controversy after initial reports said that the girl killed herself due to extreme poverty, citing her diary where she detailed the hardship experienced by her family.

But in an autopsy conducted on Amper’s exhumed remains, she was found to have lacerations in her genitals that could indicate rape. Because of this, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte last week ordered a criminal investigation on Amper’s death.

The girl’s father, Isabelo, has insisted he had nothing to do with her death and expressed willingness to face any investigation.

Baccay said all members of the Amper family living in their shanty in Yniguez subdivision, Sitio Bugac, Barangay Ma-a were invited for questioning by the police.

These were the girl’s parents, her two older brothers, her younger brother and her sister-in-law. The two older brothers and the father were subjected to a drug test, Baccay said.

He said police are now looking for a reportedly missing part of Amper’s diary where she wrote things that, if exposed, “could be a reason for her parents to separate.”

Baccay said this is the angle they are now pursuing as it is “very much connected to the rape committed against Marianeth.”

The police official practically ruled out the earlier theory that Marianeth committed suicide because of extreme poverty.

“I believe it’s wrong to say that Marianeth committed suicide because of poverty. It’s one of the factors but it’s not the main reason,” Baccay said.  

Baccay said the Amper family can be considered “low income but not dirt poor,” noting that the father works as a blacksmith, while the mother has a job in a factory.

Undersecretary Vilma Labrador of the Department of Education supported this assessment. She said some of Amper’s close friends who talked to her when she went to Davao to investigate, said the girl was always crying while saying: “I have a big problem that I cannot talk about because it would cause my family to separate.”

During the same radio program, Labrador said she also discovered that prior to Amper’s death, she always wanted to stay with her mother while working in the factory. 

“Why does the girl like staying in the factory? Her mother might have misunderstood it. She may not have thought that the girl may have had a problem when she was in the house,” she said.– Reinir Padua