‘I never raped her’

Basketball players make really big targets. Batang Red Bull’s Davonn Harp is certainly no exception. The 6-7 forward was shocked by screaming headlines on the front pages of several tabloids in June, accusing him of raping a female journalist from the south. Subsequently, he dropped out of the Philippine team training for the Asian Games, despite having averaged over 20 points and 12 rebounds game, the team’s outstanding performer.

Since then, Harp and his team have gone on to win another PBA championship, and have maintained their silence about the matter. Until now.

In an exclusive interview for The Star and The Basketball Show, Harp, with still a little trace of pain in his voice, recounts the events leading to this shocking accusation.

"Actually, this maybe started back when I was playing in the PBL," he begins. "This girl, she would just come to practice, every day. She used to leave me little love letters and things like that. I thought that we were just friends. One day, she said she was going to come over and do this interview, so I said fine. This was in 2000."

Harp forgot all about it. Then, to his dismay, the woman publicly accused him of rape, a charge he vehemently denies. On the court, he may be one of the fiercest competitors, but off it, he doffs his fearsome demeanor.

"A year and a half later, she’s telling people that I raped her, which is totally untrue. That would never happen. I’m not that type of person. I come to find out it was more of a money thing. It’s just unfortunate that it had to go like that. I knew this girl since 1999."

In subsequent articles, the case was alleged to be an instrument for getting Harp to pay for silence, similar to a recently publicized case involving Michael Jordan, who supposedly paid a woman $250,000 to keep silent about a relationship they had years ago.

"My first reaction was "What is this?" I was upset," Harp explains. "I was mad. Then, I understand the situation. What would you do if the money situation was tight? It was a way to get money. At first I was upset. But you’ve got to forgive people for things like that."

The impact of such a revelation was supposedly the reason Harp left the national team and returned to Red Bull. Had he been in the line-up in Busan, who knows how the RP team would have fared? Perhaps there would have been no need to depend on an injured Andy Seigle, or insert Mick Pennisi at the last minute. But now, we will never know.

"At the time when this came out in the newspaper. I was still playing pretty well at the time. I read it in the papers, and went to practice the next day."

Harp says everyone with the national team backed him up.

"I thank the players on the national team that I played with, the coaching staff, they all believed in me. I’m very grateful for that," he stresses. "They could have very easily said stay away from Vonn, you know he’s a bad guy. I never encountered anyone who said anything to me in a negative way. The fans, you know, they were real supportive. I go out all the time, and they never said any bad things. So I guess it’s all under the rug."

The Thunder are off to a great start, despite just waltzing out of the afterglow of a championship. But, even then, the heady air has not diminished the painful lessons Harp has learned from his bursh with betrayal.

"I think you can’t really trust people too soon. You know, I’m a friendly person, I like to meet people all the time. But I think I learned you gotta choose who to have as your friends, who you’re gonna trust."

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The full interview with Davonn Harp, plus profiles of Jannelle So, Dondon Hontiveros and highlights of the UAAP and NCAA All-Star Games will be on this week’s episode of The Basketball Show, airing at 12 noon over RPN 9.

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