MANILA, Philippines?The Supreme Court has ruled that a man can be convicted of rape due to strong circumstancial evidence?even if no spermatozoa is found in the victim?s body.

The high court overturned a decision of the Court of Appeals and instead sustained a decision of the Calbayog Regional Trial Court convicting a man from Samar of the rape-slay of a 10-year-old girl in the Samar town of Almagro in 1995.

The high court?s second division found Victor Villarino guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the complex crime of rape with homicide. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole, and ordered to pay the victim?s heirs P100,000 as civil indemnity, P6,900 as actual damages, P75,000 as moral damages, and P50,000 as exemplary damages.

The appeals court had earlier ruled that the evidence was sufficient to produce a conviction for homicide, not for the crime of rape. It said that while there were lacerations in the victim?s vagina, the absence of sperm, belied that she was raped.

Still unsatisfied, Villarino took his case to the Supreme Court.

In a 17-page decision penned by Associate Justice Mariano C. del Castillo, the Court noted there was an "unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence from which we can infer that the appellant had raped the victim" even if no spermatozoa was found in the victim?s body.

?Convictions for rape with homicide have been sustained on purely circumstantial evidence. In those cases, the prosecution presented other tell-tale signs of rape such as the laceration and description of the victim?s pieces of clothing, especially her undergarments, the position of the body when found and the like,? the Supreme Court ruling said.

The decision was concurred in by Associate Justices Antonio T. Carpio, Arturo D. Brion, Roberto A. Abad and Jose P. Perez.