Ship collision survivor charged with rape

A businessman, who survived last Sunday’s collision of two ships off Corregidor Island, was charged with statutory rape in the Palawan prosecutor’s office yesterday.

Assistant provincial prosecutor Olegario Cayetano recommended no bail for the suspect, Jameson Fedelin, 43, of Barangay I, Coron, Palawan.

Cayetano also ordered Fedelin confined at the provincial jail in Puerto Princesa City.

Fedelin was accused of raping his 14-year-old daughter since she was in Grade 6 each time her mother, Gemma, was buying merchandise in Manila for the family’s three stores in Coron town.

Fedelin boarded the M/V San Nicolas last Saturday to clear his name before Chief Superintendent Manuel Cabigon, head of Task Force Jericho of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), where Gemma lodged the rape complaint against him.

The M/V San Nicolas collided with SuperFerry 12 off Corregidor Island. Fedelin was one of the survivors.

Senior Inspector Jess Kabigting, of Task Force Jericho, told The STAR that Fedelin, being a good swimmer, managed to save some of his fellow passengers before they could get drowned.

Kabigting said that when he and Coast Guard intelligence agents picked up Fedelin at the Navy headquarters along Roxas Boulevard early Monday morning, several of his fellow survivors thanked him for saving their lives.

When confronted by Cabigon, Fedelin vehemently denied raping his only daughter.

However, results of a test conducted by the crime laboratory of the Philippine National Police showed that Fedelin’s daughter was no longer a virgin. She is now in a state of shock.

The victim told Cabigon that she kept her ordeal to herself because Fedelin had threatened to kill her and her mother.

When her mother learned about her daughter’s ordeal, they filed a rape complaint with the DILG.

Chief Inspector Eduardo Villena, legal and investigation chief of Task Force Jericho, convinced Fedelin to surrender and face the charges against him.