Fire chief, 7 others face rape charges

BACOLOD CITY — The chief of the Cadiz City Fire Department and seven others were charged in the Regional Trial Court here with "forcible abduction with rape" of a 17-year-old housemaid.

Cadiz City Prosecutor Frances Guanzon recommended no bail for their temporary release.

Named in the complaint filed by the victim are: Fire Senior Inspector Romeo Gigato Jr., Cadiz City fire chief; Alex Dorado Villanueva, Roxan Cañedo Lagura, Rodgelino Mahinay Cañedo, Antonio Nerio Magracia, FO1 Andrew Domino Zamora alias "Ademar" Zamora, and two others who remain identified.

The complainant, whose name is being withheld, said she went with the common- law wife of Villanueva last April 18 to Gardenville Subdivision in Barangay Daga, , 65.2 kilometers north of this city.

She claimed that Villanueva, who was drunk, forced her to take shabu and take her clothes off, threatening to kill her.

Despite her resistance, she said the suspect was able to abuse her twice.

After the incident, Villanueva allegedly brought her to the Cadiz Fire Station and gave her to the fire chief as a gift. Six other men allegedly abused her in one of the rooms at the fire station.

She was able to escape only four days later on April 22 and her parents brought her to the 602nd Regional Mobile Group at Barangay Old Sagay Sagay City, to seek assistance.

Gigato, in his counter affidavit, denied that the victim was forcibly detained at the fire station saying her medical certificate showed healed hymenal lacerations.

The prosecutor said that the rest of the respondents similarly put up a defense of denial and alibi in their counter affidavits.

"It must be emphasized that a medical certificate is not conclusive as to whether or not rape has been committed," the prosecutor said.

"It is hard to believe that a woman, especially a minor, would undergo the expense, trouble and inconvenience of public trial, not to mention suffer the scandal, embarrassment and humiliation such action invariably invites, as well as allow an examination of her private parts, if her motive is not to bring to justice the person who had abused her," the prosecutor added.

"We see no ill-motive on the part of the complainant to press charges against the respondents. Well-entrenched is the rule that the testimony of a rape victim is credible where she has no ill motive to testify against the accused," the prosecutor said.