Benguet lass, friend, victims of rape by Army officer, fail to join graduation rites

 Benguet lass, friend, victims of rape by Army officer, fail to join graduation rites

The Army captain enticed the young, poor teenage girls with gifts and trips, until he had his way and the girls’ future were forever shattered.
By LYN V. RAMO
Bulatlat.com
BAGUIO CITY — A girl in a remote village high school in Mankayan, will not be able to attend her graduation rites.

“Isabel,” not her real name, 16, could have been in the graduating class of a Mankayan village high school because she had high grades in all subjects. She failed to take the final examinations in the last grading period because she lost her composure after she disappeared for four days in February.

Since then she has not been in a normal state of mind. She was pronounced as severely depressed by a doctor. The depression resulted in temporary amnesia, said the Innabuyog-Gabriela, a women’s organization in the Cordillera who is documenting cases of violations of women’s rights.

Isabel’s medico-legal certificate disclosed complete hymenal laceration, periannal laceration, which suggest that not just one person had raped her. The hospital that examined her also found that she has fungal infection.

Like Isabel, “Katrina,” her friend, might also have fallen victim to statutory rape, before the Christmas break last year, when she went on a sleep-over but returned home three days later.

Born of poor peasants in the mining town of Mankayan, in Benguet, Isabel, the second of five siblings, is among a group of village teenagers considered as vulnerable to becoming victims of sexual abuse.

“They are young, innocent, and they come from poor families who do not see money flowing to the family coffers,” said Mila Lingbawan, Innabuyog secretary-general, in a press conference on March 28.

What is appalling to Innabuyog is that their common “boyfriend” is a military officer, Captain Danilo Lalin of the Highlander 86 of the 50th Infantry Battalion, now patrolling the environs of Mankayan, Benguet.

It turned out that the military captain had enticed both girls to go out with him by giving the girls gifts such as money, cellphones and trips to Ifugao and elsewhere, as evidenced by photographs of the girls in Ifugao and tickets to tourist destinations.

Some likely evidences of sexual relationship with the captain include the contraceptive pills discovered among the personal belongings of the girls just after they revealed what happened.

From being “textmates,” they finally “eye-balled” (or personally meet) in December when the guy revealed his real identity and eventually invited ‘Katrina’ to a military Christmas party in Tinoc, Ifugao.

Cases of soldiers raping, deceiving girls

“This is not the first case of a military man raping innocent young community girls in the Cordillera,” said Lingbawan.

Jude Baggo of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) said his group has documented cases of rape involving the military. He cited the case of a 14-year old girl in Abra who was allegedly gang-raped by two to three soldiers in 1999. He said, in Mankayan, Isabel’s case is not the first..... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/03/29/benguet-lass-friend-victims-of-rape-by-army-officer-fail-to-join-graduation-rites/