MPD man cleared of rape inside HQ; judge an ex-cop

A Manila court has acquitted a policeman accused of raping a street vendor in one of the offices of the city police headquarters on UN Avenue on Dec. 31, 2010.

Judge Jaime Santiago of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 3 cleared Police Officer 3 Antonio Bautista Jr. of the charges filed by Virginia Empoy Nuez.

“The complaint was the sinister brainchild of the complainant’s live-in partner Joseph Cierbo and defense witness Ma. Victoria Burgos,” said Santiago, a former sharpshooting policeman assigned in the Manila Police District.

He said the medical certificate produced by the alleged rape victim also did not support her testimony but instead “corroborated the denial of the accused.”

Bautista briefly went into hiding and surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation after Mayor Alfredo Lim issued a “shoot-to-kill order.” He was dismissed from the service in April 2011. Nancy Carjaval