11-year-old asks Marcos: How can we read if we are being raped?
MANILA, Philippines — “Mr. President, how will we read if we are being raped?”
This was the question posed by an 11-year-old student to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as she sought protection and redress from sexual and other forms of injustices allegedly perpetrated by a barangay kagawad (village councilor) and his sons in Tinambac, Camarines Sur.
The student, a beneficiary of the nonprofit organization Redeemer Homeless Mission, which provides education and other assistance to homeless children, “walked out” of her graduation ceremony on Monday to submit a petition to the vice mayor of Tinambac calling for the removal of the local official.
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“In the last year you [Marcos] have been at the forefront of EDCOM1 (The First Congressional Commission on Education) encouraging kids like me to read. May I share with you my experience from the mission field, on the ground with the poor people?” she said in a letter addressed to Marcos, dated and posted online on March 30.
“Kids like me love to read, and we would do it every day if given the opportunity. One of my sisters [redacted] loves to read but on her way home from school on November 17, 2022 and on February 14, 2023 she was raped, twice, by a son of a Kagawad in our town,” she said.
The identities of both the letter sender and the alleged victim were withheld due to the sensitivity of the matter.
She recounted how the alleged victim “got pregnant from the first rape” and that the village councilor “kidnapped” and brought her to Montalban to have an abortion.
“Then the tauhan [staff] they sent with [the victim] raped her again and she now no longer goes to school. This Kagawad has another son too that raped a girl in 2018,” the letter read.
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It was not only the victim who experienced mistreatment by the unnamed local official.
The student also detailed broader abuses by the official, including threatening families, cutting and stealing electrical wires leaving households without electricity, and damaging the wires to wells, leaving families without water.
“I have seen him set grass fires to kill us, put nails in our tires, destroy our coconut plants, and steal our tanim [crop]. Many of the families here stay in survival mode because government people make life very very difficult,” she said.
She asked Marcos: “Mr. President how will we read if we are being raped? How will we read if our own government people cut our electrical wire so we have no lights? How will we read if our kagawad cut our balon wires and so we have no water?”
“We are kids, we are not involved in your political parties, I just want to go to school without being raped. So, can you please help us?”
Marcos angry, in tears
The letter quickly gained traction on social media, garnering more than 5,000 shares.
The President himself took notice of the letter and responded.
“My dear [letter sender], Your letter has reached me and brought me close to tears and made me very angry. I am sending policemen to you and your sisters to protect you and to find anyone who has hurt any of you. I will make sure that you will be able to continue reading and studying as much as you want. You are a very brave, intelligent and very kind girl and I will make sure to help you and your sisters in any way you need,” Marcos said in the comment section.
He also said, “If there is anything else that you need, just get in touch with us and we will help.”
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority reveal that pregnancies among girls under 15 often involve older men and are likely the result of statutory rape.
In response, the non-government organization Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development renewed its call for the passage of the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, which seeks to strengthen prevention, child protection, and comprehensive adolescent sexuality education on consent and safety./ dp
