PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. REYNALDO MANCILLA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

It is not unusual in rape cases for the accused to claim that he
and the complainant are sweethearts and that their carnal conversation was not
a violent intrusion but a consensual act of love.  Such a defense was pleaded in the case at
bar.  There is, however, a rather
intriguing variation of this defense in this case that makes the herein
accused-appellant, if he is to be believed, a distinctive lover, indeed.  We shall come to that later.

The accused-appellant was at the time of the alleged offense a 26-year old widower who was working as a driver for the bishop of the Philippine
Independent Church, of which the complainant was a member.  Susan Sabuero was
then seventeen years old and a third year high school student in Misamis Oriental, where the rape was supposedly committed.^[1]

This incident happened, according to the prosecution, on November 28, 1974, at about six o’clock in the evening, at Sitio Mencape, in Sugbongcogon, of the said province.  Reynaldo Mancilla
had earlier fetched Rosita Sabuero to see one Mother Roning Llegis, a superior of the
church, and Susan had come along in the belief that she too was needed.  Mancilla was driving the bishop’s jeep.  Upon arriving at their destination, Rosita
alighted.  Susan could not follow,
however, because Mancilla abruptly closed the door of
the jeep and sped away with her.^[2]

As recounted by Susan, Mancilla told
her they had to get something from the convent but when she saw they were going
the wrong way she shouted for help and tried to jump off the vehicle.  Mancilla pulled her
down, tearing the back of her dress.  He
then drove to a secluded bushy place where he started forcing his attentions on
her.  She said she resisted at first and
slapped him when he began kissing her but became
frightened when he threatened her life with a dagger.  She felt its cold steel on her arm.  In the end, although she tried her best to
foil his attempts, he succeeded in violating her.  She recovered from a fainting spell to find
her maidenhood bleeding and painful and still bared after the just-accomplished penetration.  She sat up and started crying and Mancilla comforted her, assuring her he would marry
her.  But he warned her not to tell
anybody about the incident or he would kill her.  They thereafter drove back and on the way met
Rosita and two of Mancilla’s friends, who all rode in
the back of the jeep.^[3]

Susan said nothing as they drove to the convent, where they
alighted.  She walked fast to her house
nearby with her panty clutched in her hand and immediately reported the assault
upon her to her family.  Her mother and
Rosita forthwith brought her to her uncle, Lorenzo Gailaman,
a municipal councilor, who
accompanied them to the police chief, Dionisio Borres.  On his
advice, she submitted to a medical examination, which was performed the same
night by Dr. Leon Llanto, Jr., who found fresh lacerations
in the girl’s hymen and semen in her vagina. 
After the examination, Susan returned to the office of Borres, who took down her statement, which she completed
and signed the following day.^[4]

On the basis of her complaint and after preliminary investigation
had been formally waived by the accused, an information
for rape was filed against Reynaldo Mancilla on January 3, 1976.  Following the trial, Judge Eulalio D. Rosete of the Court of
First Instance of Misamis Oriental rendered a
decision dated July 29, 1976,
finding the accused guilty and sentencing him to reclusion perpetua,
plus civil indemnity in the sum of P25,000.00 and the costs.^[5] It is this decision we are now asked to reverse on the ground that it is not
conformable to the established evidence and the constitutional presumption of
innocence.

As earlier suggested, the crux of Mancilla’s defense is that he and Susan were sweethearts
and had mutually consented to their embrace of love.  According to him, he had driven her toward
the sitio and started kissing her on the way but she had stopped him because
she said there was a house nearby and they might be seen.  That is why, he said, he drove to the
secluded spot, which was more agreeable to her. 
There she willingly gave herself to him despite the discomfiture of
their contortions on the front seat of the jeep.^[6]

Susan denied they were lovers and did so consistently.  No evidence of such relationship was ever
presented by the defense except Mancilla’s own
self-serving testimony of how he had wooed and won the girl.  Both parties agreed that they had met each
other for the first time only the day before, that is, November 27, 1974.  Mancilla insisted
that Susan had gone on a swimming picnic on that date with a group that
included himself,^[7]
but Susan’s teacher, Lucita Santillan,
testified that on the day and time Susan was supposed to be enjoying the
outing, she was actually taking a test in school.^[8]
At any rate, Mancilla declared that it was on that
first day that he announced his love for Susan and that he reiterated this
sentiment to her in the afternoon of the following day.  That was when the girl finally accepted him.^[9]
Hence, they were already affianced when they drove in the jeep to the secluded
place where they consummated their love.

To hear Mancilla speak, one would
suppose he is a homegrown Casanova with perhaps even a more impressive track
record than the notorious original.  He
would be what is known as a fast worker with a special appeal that will make
the ladies fall in line for the privilege of swooning over him.  In the case of Susan, he said, it took him
about forty minutes to win her although, concededly, he had proposed her the
day before.  There was a girl, he
recalled, a Miss Cartagena, who accepted his love
after less than fifteen minutes of courtship. 
His wife took a little longer; three days elapsed before she confessed
that she was also smitten by him.  Thus
he declared modestly:

Q –  These
four (4) women accepted your love before your wife, you easily got them.  Your love here was easily accepted before
your wife?

A –   Yes.  They liked me so much.  They accepted me.

Q
–  It did not even take you a day to convince them who accepted your love
each one of them?

A
–   Yes.  I even courted one and she
accepted me less than fifteen (15) minutes. 
She is Miss Cartagena.

Q
–  Among those women you courted
including your wife, you find Susan too difficult to win your love and it
almost took you forty (40) minutes to win her love?

A
–   My wife, I had also a hard time
courting my wife.  She accepted in three
(3) days courting.

Q –  You
also found Susan difficult?

A
–   Not so difficult.  Not so hard because she accepted me not for a long time.^[10]

His romance with Susan, if true, must have been as brief as their courtship for she was already
charging him with rape only a few hours after he claimed she accepted him.  If it is true, as he averred, that she was
afraid he would not marry her after their sexual encounter, one may wonder why
his subsequent offers of marriage – made several times through his intermediaries – were repeatedly
rejected by his supposed betrothed.^[11]
His tale of Susan attending the picnic has already been established as false by
the evidence of her teacher’s attendance report.^[12]
As for his vaunted record with the girls, the trial judge, who had the
opportunity of observing him, was presumably not impressed by his looks or
style as to accept his testimony at face value.

And there is still another part of his testimony that is hard to accept, to wit, his
assertion that Susan was wearing shorts at the time of the incident and nothing
underneath.^[13]
It is inconceivable that a girl wearing shorts – and a provinciana
at that – will not wear a panty underneath unless she is a complete
wanton.  Ever sophisticated city girls
are not that reckless (not that this Court pretends to be an authority on this
delicate subject).  In any event, Susan’s
torn panty was offered as an exhibit^[14]
to belie Mancilla’s improbable declaration that when
he pulled down Susan’s shorts there was immediately
exposed to him her lascivious invitation.

The defense put the complainant through a very rigorous
cross-examination in an attempt to enmesh her it contradictions about how the
rape was committed, suggesting
it could not have been perpetrated if she had offered enough resistance – or at
least prevention – considering
the cramped space where she and Mancilla were
supposedly grappling.  There were indeed some inconsistencies in her
declaration.  These are
understandable, however, if it is considered
that one cannot expect a rape victim to remember every ugly detail of her
traumatic experience, especially so since she might in fact be trying not
to remember them.  The mere circumstance
that she was testifying in the
presence of strangers on an intimate matter not usually even mentioned in
public might have caused her not a
little embarrassment and confusion that rendered her narration less than
perfect.

In the view of the Court, the weakest evidence presented by the
prosecution was the testimony of Rosita Sabuero,
whose conduct after Mancilla sped away in the jeep with Susan is hardly understandable.  Mancilla was
practically a stranger to Susan, having been introduced to her only the day
before, yet Rosita did not seem disturbed when he just rode away with her niece
that night without any explanation. 
Rosita did not chase them or at least demand where they were going.  She said she was alarmed but she nevertheless
went up Roning’s house without mentioning the
incident to her and even accepted the latter’s offer of peanuts which she ate.^[15]
The municipal building was only a block away from Roning’s
house, but it never occurred to Rosita to seek the help of the police in
looking for the apparently abducted Susan.^[16]
And later, when Mancilla and Susan reappeared, Rosita
said nothing although she noticed that her niece was unusually quiet.^[17]

But Rosita’s conduct, as inexplicable as it might be, should not detract from the truthfulness of
Susan’s own direct account of how
she was violated by the accused-appellant.  If Rosita was irrational, that did not make
Susan equally so; the former’s reactions were hers
alone and did not reflect on the latter. 
Significantly, Mancilla’s own declarations are
hardly credible either, less so indeed
than Rosita’s.

What the accused-appellant has not succeeded in refuting are the
physical fact of Susan’s defilement and her sworn statement that it was he who
had forced himself on her, threatening her with a dagger all the while.  This should also explain the lack of bruises
or other marks of violence on her body. 
His prowess as a Don Juan, even if true, nevertheless did not work on
Susan, making it necessary to intimidate her with the weapon to gratify his
lust.  It was lust, indeed, not love,
that pierced the hymeneal shield and bled it, leaving the girl in tears of pain and revulsion.

The Court also notes the meaningful circumstance that almost
immediately after the sexual encounter, Susan reported it to her family and
thereafter lost no time in complaining to the authorities and submitting to an
embarrassing medical examination to prove her charge against Mancilla.  This is
hardly the conduct of a young woman who
has just been transported with ecstasy in the discovery of the pain and
the sweetness and the promise of a portal that is opened to a tremblingly anticipated guest.  There is
no doubt that the girl was ravished.  Susan deflowered was a girl desecrated, not a virgin fulfilled.

The Court is convinced that the accused-appellant did commit the
rape upon the complainant under the circumstances narrated by the
prosecution.  For his outrage of the
maiden’s virtue, he deserves the penalty imposed on him by law and the deep
disgust of all decent persons who value the chastity of women and the purity of
love.

WHEREFORE, the appealed judgment is AFFIRMED in toto with costs against the
accused-appellant.  It is so ordered.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Griño-Aquino, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

Gancayco, J., on leave.

^[1]
TSN, April 22, 1976, p.
190; June 23, 1976, p. 332.

^[2]
Rollo, p. 10.

^[3]
Ibid., pp. 10-12.

^[4]
Id., pp. 12-14;
Exhibits “A,” “H-2,” “G-3,” Original Records, pp.
5, 9-10,17-19.

^[5]
Id., p. 27.

^[6]
Id., pp. 17-19.

^[7]
Id., pp. 15-16.

^[8]
TSN, June 14, 1978, pp.
483-485.

^[9]
Rollo, pp. 14-16.

^[10]
TSN, July 13, 1976, pp.
447-448.

^[11]
Rollo, p. 22.

^[12]
Exhibit “N,” Original Records, p. 417.

^[13]
TSN, June 24, 1976, p. 370.

^[14]
Exhibit “K;” TSN, May 31,
1976, p. 318.

^[15]
TSN, April 20, 1976, pp.
177-179.

^[16]
Ibid., pp. 180-181.

^[17]
Id., pp. 183-186.