Rape raps vs Pampanga priest trashed
CONTRIBUTED by KLAREYY MONTEFALCO
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, PAMPANGA, Philippines — A young woman claiming to have been raped by a Roman Catholic priest has joined a picket of her relatives and village mates at the provincial capitol grounds here on Wednesday.
The protesters mounted the picket after the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor dismissed the complaint for rape and acts of lasciviousness against the priest and two of his alleged cohorts in a parish in western Pampanga since 2023 for “insufficiency of evidence.”
The complainant, now 21, managed to get an audience with Vice Governor Dennis Pineda, Board Members Claire David Lim and Fritzie David Dixon, and lawyer Nicolette Henson.
After hearing her narrative and request for help, Pineda gave her free legal assistance.
READ: Priest arrested in Negros Occidental for allegedly raping choir girl
In an 18-page resolution dated May 6 and obtained by the INQUIRER on Wednesday, May 19, Associate Provincial Prosecutor Louise Faye Enciso-Oyardo said the dismissal of the complaint by the former church volunteer was “without prejudice to the refiling of the same, should future evidence so warrant.”
Oyardo explained that she issued the order before the 60-day period for resolution was about to lapse.
Her affidavit was replete with details of alleged incidents of forced sexual acts that took place from Nov. 10, 2023 to March 19, 2024. until she gathered the courage to report these to her parents on Jan. 26 this year.
In the Jan. 22, 2024 incident, the priest allegedly sent one of the cohorts and watched a forced sexual intercourse on her via a video call from Singapore.
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She alleged that the priest “exercised moral ascendancy and psychological control over her, employing persistent communication, emotional pressure and directives that influenced her actions.”
‘Voluntary and consensual’
The priest claimed that their “communications and interactions were voluntary and consensual, and were not attended by force, intimidation, coercion, or abuse of authority.”
One of the cohorts admitted that “any acts that transpired were under the direction, control and moral ascendancy of [the priest] through financial support, emotional manipulation, and implied threats, creating fear and dependence that deprived him of free choice.”
Oyardo said that while the complainant repeatedly alleged that she acted out of fear due to threats of the dissemination of her explicit images and supposed harm through the [priest’s] alleged connection with the [New People’s Army], the records are bereft of independent, competent, and reliable evidence establishing the existence, immediacy and gravity of such threats as would effectively vitiate consent.”
“The alleged intimidation remains largely incorporated and rests principally on the complainant’s bare assertions,” she added, noting that the “failure” to present evidence of threats on Facebook messages “cast serious doubts.”
“The totality of evidence falls short of the required prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction to support a finding that the respondent employed force, threat, intimidation, or coercion to consummate the alleged acts of rape and acts of lasciviousness,” Oyardo wrote Provincial Prosecutor Lamberto Gonzales Jr. approved the resolution.
San Fernando Archbishop Florentino Lavarias, head of the Office for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, has yet to say what actions he has taken on the priest despite the first legal win.
The priest was known to have been reassigned and recently said the holy Mass in a church in Lubao town. The archdiocese hosted an international conference on safeguarding minors and vulnerable persons at the Clark Freeport in October 2025.
It was not known if Lavarias had elevated the matter to a canonical court, as the new protocol required. /cb
