The Supreme Court has upheld a trial court’s conviction of a father who was found guilty of sexually assaulting his own daughter in 2014 and 2016.
“A father who rapes his own daughter, whom he is supposed to protect, descends to a level lower than the lowly animal,” the SC declared in its February 9 resolution, which sustained the ruling of the trial court and Court of Appeals on the two life imprisonments imposed on the father who raped his own daughter.
“Such a ‘father’ deserves no place in Philippine society, whose fundamental law considers the family as a basic autonomous social institution and the foundation of the nation, recognizes the sanctity of family life, and cloaks with special protection the right of children against all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation, and other conditions prejudicial to their development,” the SC added.
Aside from the jail terms, the High Court also ordered the father to pay P100,000 in civil indemnity, P100,000 in moral damages and P100,000 in exemplary damages in each of the two cases.
As mandated by existing laws, the identities of the father, his daughter, the mother, and other persons as well as the place where the crime was committed were redacted in the resolution.
“The identity of the victim or any information which could establish or compromise her identity, as well as those of her immediate family or household members, shall be withheld,” the High Court said.
Case records showed the victim’s parents separated when she was still young. Her father was detained when she was five years old while her mother started a new family. The victim stayed with her aunt.
When she was 13 years old, her father was released from jail and took her in custody.
In her testimony before the trial court, she said she was raped by her father several times and could only recall two specific dates of the sexual abuse – Aug. 13, 2014 and Oct. 14, 2016.
After every abuse, the victim said she was threatened by her father not to tell anyone or she would be killed.
However, after the Oct. 14, 2016 rape, the victim decided to confide to a neighbor who helped her report the abuses to the police.
The father denied all the accusations and claimed that her daughter was mad at him because he prevented her from going out with her friends.
The trial court ruled that between self-serving denials of the father and the positive account of the incident made by the daughter, it is the version of the latter that inspires and deserves belief.
“It is settled that when a woman says that she has been raped, she says in effect all that is necessary to show that rape has been committed, and that if her testimony meets the test of credibility, the accused may be convicted on the basis thereof. The testimony of a rape victim is credible where she has no motive to testify against the accused,” the SC said.