A 17-year old rape case at the Regional Trial Court ended last week with the conviction of a construction worker who had sexually abused a five-year old girl in 2002.
Last Sept. 13, 2019, RTC Branch 43 Presiding Judge Lelu P. Contreras found Amado Teope Taopa, 42, guilty beyond reasonable doubt of rape and sentenced him to suffer the penalty of life imprisonment on two counts and to pay the now 22-year old victim the total sum of P180,000 as civil indemnity, moral and exemplary damages.
The case hinged largely on the testimony of the victim, AAA, who went with her mother, BBB, when they left their home in Antipolo to take a vacation in Bato, staying in Oguis with her mother-in-law.
The mother recalled that the accused, who is a cousin of her husband, fetched the child from the house several times and brought her to Sipi at the house of her grandmother where she stayed for a week.
Sometime during the last part of August 2002, she was giving the child a batch when she noticed that her sexual organ was swollen. She brought her to the Rural Health Unit and, as the doctor was nor around, was given paracetamol for the child to take.
It was only on Nov. 13 that AAA was examined by the doctor, who found healed hymenal lacerations, with the complaint against Taopa filed before the police that same day.
The mother told the Court that it was on their way to the police that AAA narrated what Taopa, also known as Junjun and Jonathan, did to her. The child had said Junjun had just arrived at the house in Sipi from a drinking session and, after turning off the lights, chased her under the table.
She said that while she was lying down, the accused used a chicken feather to touch her all over her body and then kissed her.
AA was so scared that she was not able to shout when Taopa raped her twice, once in the morning and another in the evening although it was not clear whether the two incidents happened on the same day.
In his defense, Taopa denied the allegations against him and said he learned about the complaint when he was already in Antipolo at the house of AAA’s family.
Listed as Bato’s number one most wanted man, he was arrested by Bato police officers and elements of the Quezon City Police Department Station 8 last Jan. 5, 2019 in sitio El Dorado in barangay San Jose, Antipolo City.