Fund-raising drive on for raped nurse

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Catholic schools, the media community and other sympathetic groups in Central Mindanao yesterday launched a fund-raising drive to help sustain a possibly long legal battle against the suspects in last week’s gang-rape of a volunteer-nurse in South Upi, Maguindanao.

The victim is still confined in a local hospital, guarded by policemen and volunteers of Maguindanao’s Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO).

The fund-raising drive was agreed upon last Thursday by representatives of different media organizations here, officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the IPHO-Maguindanao, and employees of the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information (BPI).

The proponents of the fund drive all agreed that there is a need to help the 21-year-old volunteer-nurse sustain a legal battle against her alleged molesters, among them children of local officials and scions of influential clans in South Upi town.

Members of the Kampilan Press Group, which covers the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and staffers of the BPI-ARMM were among the first to shell out donations for the victim.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, ARMM executive secretary, said his office will issue a memorandum encouraging all employees of the governor’s office to donate any amount for the victim.

The victim served as a volunteer-nurse in South Upi under a joint project of the ARMM’s health and labor departments.

“She was contracted with only P8,000 as monthly stipend and was to work for six months in that area,” said Dr. Tahir Sulaik, IPHO-Maguindanao chief.

Sulaik said concerned departments of the ARMM government, including the office of acting ARMM Gov. Ansarudin Adiong, have already extended initial assistance to the victim.

Six suspects in the gang-rape have been arrested, but South Upi residents said they are all fall guys and that the real culprits are still all at large.

“One of them is a son of an incumbent local official while another is a son of a retired police officer,” said a public school teacher who resides near the area where the rape took place.

Senior Superintendent Jacinto Malinao, CIDG-ARMM director, has given assurance that there would be no whitewash in the case.

“But for us to succeed, we need the support of all sectors in South Upi. Together, we can build an air-tight case against the culprits,” Malinao said.

ARMM Local Government Secretary Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman Jr. yesterday held a closed-door executive discussion with South Upi Mayor Abdullah Campong, who is now the subject of criticisms for having been mum on the incident. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe