Rape victim transferred to Davao hospital

DAVAO CITY, Philippines  – Security has been tight for the 21-year-old volunteer nurse who was gang-raped in South Upi, Maguindanao after she was transferred to the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) here for further treatment.

SPMC director Leopoldo Vega said tight security has to be imposed as requested by the victim’s parents.

“We cannot tell where she is exactly in the hospital and that we also would not allow anyone to get near her, including the media. She is undergoing treatment now,” he said.

Vega said the victim has been suffering mainly from neurological problems.

“Based on our initial check-up on her, she has brain contusions and she has deficiencies on the right side of her body which cause the paralysis. I hope she can recover soon,” he said.

Vega said the victim has been half-awake and half-conscious and could not speak as a result of injuries from the attack.

A joint police-military team provided security when a medical group led by Maguindanao provincial health officer Tahir Sulaik brought the victim to this city from Cotabato City.

Sulaik told reporters that the victim had to be brought to Davao City because the hospital in Cotabato City does not have the necessary facilities to further treat her.

Sulaik said examinations showed that she was indeed raped. She was found naked and unconscious last month at the back of a hospital in South Upi town where she rendered volunteer services.

Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac, Maguindanao police director, said at least six suspects, including a militiaman, have been arrested. Sulaik said another group is in charge of pursuing the case.

There were reports though that the arrested suspects are mere fall guys and the real culprits include a scion of a local political clan.

The case though took a “sudden twist” as a self-confessed suspect in the gang-rape was alleged to have a “bizarre background.”

Concerned villagers, among them members of the Muslim and Christian religious communities, said the suspect, Melchor Fulgencio, has long been suspected of habitually molesting his 10-year-old daughter and some neighbors said he is an “exhibitionist” who moves around his house naked even in the presence of family members.

Five years ago, Fulgencio’s brother was reportedly forced to marry, as a traditional settlement, an ethnic Teduray woman Fulgencio allegedly raped in another South Upi barangay.

Asked for comment, Senior Superintendent Jacinto Malinao, regional chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, confirmed having received such information from South Upi residents.

Malinao said Fulgencio even recently shaved her daughter’s head so she could not to leave their house and mingle with friends in the neighborhood.

“He (Fulgencio) has a very strange personality. We are looking into the possibility there’s incest going on in their house,” Malinao said, without elaborating.

Fulgencio was just invited by operatives of the CIDG-ARMM and the National Bureau of Investigation in Region 12 for questioning, but eventually confessed to his having raped the volunteer nurse.

Malinao said Fulgencio’s interrogation was witnessed by a lawyer and videotaped by a member of a news crew of a local cable TV company.

Malinao said they merely invited Fulgencio for questioning at first because his house is located less than 50 meters away from the scene of the gang-rape.

“All of a sudden, surprisingly, he confessed to having raped the victim. The development brought a new angle to the case. But the investigation is not over yet,” Malinao said.

He said experts have taken a blood sample and mouth swab from Fulgencio to determine if his DNA matched with some vital evidence investigators found at the crime scene.

Malinao said they are locating two other suspects, a certain Edwin and a son of a school principal in South Upi.

Fulgencio, in his affidavit, named a certain Edwin, a neighbor, as his cohort in the rape.

– With John Unson