The Supreme Court (SC) has upheld a decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) that imposed a 40-year prison term on two Caloocan City policemen who raped a woman they had arrested.
Records show that the rape occurred inside the computer room of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) office in Caloocan City on Nov. 7 and 8, 1999.
The SC’s Third Division said then Caloocan City Judge and now CA Associate Justice Myrna Dimaranan-Vidal correctly imposed the penalty of reclusion perpetua on Senior Police Officers 1 Arnulfo Aure and Marlon Ferol as the information charging them with rape neither specified that the incident occurred in the office of the CIDG nor mentioned that the accused were police officers, both aggravating circumstances which would have increased the penalty to death.
Aside from the jail term, the SC said Aure and Ferol should pay the victim a total of P170,000 in civil and moral damages and attorney’s fees.
According to records, on Nov. 7, 1999, Aure and Ferol along with other CIDG operatives brought the victim to the CIDG office in Caloocan to investigate her for reportedly exploiting minors.
At about 7 p.m. on the same day, Aure summoned the victim to the computer room for interrogation. While asking questions, Aure raped the victim and later threatened to kill her if she reports the incident.
Seven hours later, the victim was sleeping on the sofa inside the CIDG office when she was awakened by Ferol, who demanded P300,000 in exchange for dropping the case against her.
When she refused, Ferol held a gun to her temple and told her to go to the computer room, where he raped her. – Mike Frialde