Man gets life for raping own baby

The Valenzuela City Regional Trial Court has sentenced a 35-year-old man to life imprisonment for sexually molesting his own one-year old daughter three years ago.

The accused, Lorenzo Filiciano of 207 Sto. Rosario St., Mapulang Lupa, was also ordered to pay the victim P50,000 in moral and exemplary damages. In his decision, Judge Floro Alejo of RTC Branch 172 found sufficient grounds to convict Feliciano of the Anti-Child Abuse Law.

The prosecution said the accused repeatedly raped his daughter inside their home on January to April of 1997. Court records showed that the victim’s mother, Erlinda Opinion, 35, caught Feliciano in the act of molesting their daughter.

Opinion, who was the common-law-wife of the accused, testified that she was living in Tondo, Manila at the time of the incidents and had left Feliciano to care for their children.

The victim’s older brother also corroborated his mother’s testimony, and said that he also witnessed Feliciano molesting his sister.

For his part, the accused denied ever raping the victim, saying he was inflicted with chicken-pox from January to April of 1997.

The defense said it was impossible for Feliciano to go near the victim because of the disease.

But the court junked the claim because "there is no physical impossibilities for the accused to have committed the offense."

The judge also gave credence to the testimony of Opinion and the victim’s brother, whose testimony was "clear and coherent."

Meanwhile, operatives of the Central Police District arrested Monday three of the six drug addicts who allegedly gang-raped two teenagers for four days inside a house in Quezon City on Wednesday.

Suspects Roberto Florentino, 35, alias Bambi; Rodelio dela Santos, 40 alias Pugo, and his brother Wilfredo, 44, alias Boy, all residents of Gen. Aurelio St., Veterans Village, Bagong Silangan, Quezon City were detained at the CPD Batasan Hills Police Station.

Charges of rape were being readied against the suspects who were arrested by Batasan Hills Police Station agents during a raid in their homes in Quezon City. The three other suspects remain at large and are now the subjects of a police manhunt.

The victims, both minors and residents of West Fairview, told the police that they were raped by the suspects after they were abducted on Nov. 1 while on their way home from the cemetery.– Pia Lee-Brago