Chinese embassy cold to police’s plea for help in rape case

The Chinese Embassy has been unresponsive to multiple pleas from the Mandaluyong City police that it assist a Chinese woman allegedly raped by another Chinese national.

Police Col. Remigio Sedanto and Capt. Cristina Vasquez, Mandaluyong police chief and head of the Women and Children Protection Desk, respectively, said in an interview that they had visited the embassy in Makati City thrice since the 24-year-old victim was assaulted on New Year’s Day.

“The first time, we brought the victim so they could see that this was their fellow countryman who had been raped,” Vasquez said. “But no official from the embassy met with us.”

They returned on Jan. 2 and 3, but each time, only embassy guards faced them, she added.

The police asked the embassy to provide both an interpreter and shelter for the young woman, who could only speak Mandarin and whose sole address was the suspect’s condominium unit.

The victim claimed the suspect had lured her to Manila with the promise of a job. When she arrived on Dec. 31, she went to his condominium before they left for a party at Soho Central Private Residences on Shaw Boulevard.

It was there that she was raped around 2 a.m. before she managed to escape. She went to the embassy but upon finding it closed, asked the police for help.

Vasquez said the embassy ultimately referred them to a private interpreter and residence although it refused to shoulder the cost for both, insisting that the victim, who had no money, should pay.

The Mandaluyong City government eventually stepped in to secure an interpreter on Jan. 9, and the police filed rape charges under Republic Act 8353 with Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Lourdes Javelosa-Indunan that same day.