Disqualified Batangas mayor cleared in Ormoc rape case

Jay Manalo Ilagan (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

ORMOC CITY — Jay Manalo Ilagan, the disqualified mayor of Mataas na Kahoy town, Batangas, is now a free man after a local court here acquitted him of the charges of rape and human trafficking.

Executive Judge James Clinton Nuevo of the Regional Trial Court Branch 12 promulgated the ruling Thursday morning, acquitting Ilagan of the charge that he raped a 19-year-old woman inside a pension house in 2013, in Ormoc City.

Judge Nuevo said the complainant’s testimony was not credible and trustworthy.  He said there were too many details in her story that did not match  verified facts.

Ilagan, in his ruling, said there was enough basis to doubt the alleged victim’s credibility in this case, adding that reasonable doubt constantly hovered above her supposedly air-tight rape story.

“The overriding consideration is not whether the court doubts the innocence of the accused, but whether it entertains a reasonable doubt as to their guilt,” the ruling stated.

Ilagan was reelected mayor in the past May elections while detained in Ormoc City.  He, however, was disqualified by the Commission on Elections because of his record as a fugitive from justice.  He evaded arrest from 2014 to January 2016 when he surrendered to the NBI.  On July 29, 2016, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Comelec to disqualify him.

In 2014, a 19-year-old woman sued Ilagan for allegedly sexually assaulting her in 2013 in a pension house in Ormoc.

Ilagan eluded arrest even after the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), in December 2015, raided his farm in Barangay Santol in Mataas na Kahoy. The CIDG reported seizing at least 142 firearms, among them high-powered guns.

Ilagan surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila in January 2016, but he denied the charges.  SFM/rga