4 face raps over PSG barracks rape case

Charges of acts of lasciviousness and human trafficking were filed Wednesday night by the Manila Police District (MPD) against a member of the Presidential Security Group (PSG), two barangay (village) chairmen and a businessman.

The four men were charged in connection with allegations of abuse leveled against them by a 15-year-old girl who claimed she was sexually molested inside the PSG barracks after she was allegedly sold by a barangay chairman.

A charge of acts of lasciviousness in relation to Republic Act 7610, or the Anti-Child Abuse Act, was filed against Staff Sergeant Walter Candelaria, 38, a stay-in at the Valdez Mansion in San Miguel, or the PSG barracks, before Assistant City Prosecutor Maria Cielo Rubi Galicia.

Barangay 637 Zone 65 chairman Angelo Murillo, Barangay 646 Zone 67 chairman Ruel Floro and businessman Timmy Wuu were charged with violation of Republic Act 9208, or human trafficking.

Both Candelaria and Murillo voluntarily surrendered to the custody of the MPD Women’s and Children’s Protection Desk (WCPD) while Floro and Wuu remain at large.

The city prosecutor is set to conduct a preliminary investigation into the case.

Based on the complaint filed by the teenage victim, she claimed that the incident started around 11 p.m. of Monday, while she and a friend were standing outside the Barangay 637 Zone 65 hall.

The teenager alleged that Murillo had arrived drunk with three other men aboard a car. As soon as Murillo saw her, the barangay captain allegedly asked her to choose among his companions, which she thought was a joke.

“He then whispered that the men he introduced to me could help me,” the victim recalled, adding that Murillo helped her into the car, which drove away as soon as she was aboard.

The driver, whom she identified as Wuu, allegedly told his companion on the front seat to give her money. While the passenger on the front seat, later identified as Floro, questioned her on her background, the three men just laughed.

Seated beside her on the car, the teenager alleged, was Candelaria with whom she got off the vehicle. She claimed that the PSG man walked to an automated teller machine where he withdrew P1,000, before they proceeded to the barracks. While they were walking, the PSG man allegedly instructed her to introduce herself as his niece should anybody ask.

Once inside Candelaria’s room, the staff sergeant took off his clothes and allegedly started touching the teenager. When she protested and started crying, Candelaria allegedly rebuked her, saying, “You cannot cry. We only have 15 minutes,” which he explained was the period of time he and Murillo agreed for the PSG man to have sex with her.

When the teenager told him that she was not the type to sell herself for sex, the PSG man allegedly told her, “That is not what the chairman told me.”

The victim insisted to be brought home at that point, and the irked sergeant drove her to her house aboard a white Toyota car.

“Once we arrived, he started telling me bad words. When I told him that I would tell my father about what happened, he answered that he did not care if I told anyone about what happened and left,” the teenager said in her statement.

Initially, the 15-year-old girl accused on Tuesday three PSG men of rape claiming that she was sexually molested inside the PSG barracks in San Miguel, Manila.