PEOPLE OF THE PHILLIPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DOMINADOR MUNDA, SR., ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

The accused Dominador Munda, Sr. appeals from the decision of the Regional
Trial Court of
Legaspi City,
Branch 4, in Criminal Case No. 2846, which convicted him of the crime of
rape.  The information filed by the Assistant Provincial Fiscal read as follows:

“That in or about the month of July, 1983, in the early
morning of a Sunday, at Quitinday, Jovellar, Albay, Philippines,
within the jurisdiction of the Honorable Court, the above-named accused, with
abuse of confidence, by means of force and intimidation, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously have sexual intercourse
with Juvy M. Aldon, a
twelve-year old girl, without her consent and against her will.

Contrary to law.”^[1]

At arraignment, appellant pleaded not guilty.  After trial, appellant was convicted in a
Decision dated 28 February 1985,
the dispositive portion of which stated:

“WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered finding the accused Dominador Munda, Sr. guilty of
the crime of rape as charged beyond reasonable doubt, sentencing him to suffer
the penalty of imprisonment or reclusion perpetua and
to pay the costs.

The accused is ordered to indemnify the offended party the amount
of Three Thousand (P3,000.00) Pesos as damages, without subsidiary imprisonment
in case of insolvency.”^[2]

In the present appeal, appellant raises a single assignment of
error:  that the prosecution had failed
to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The evidence submitted by the prosecution tended to prove the following set of facts:

For many years prior to the commission of the crime, appellant Dominador Munda lived with his common-law wife, Maria Mirabete Aldon, and Juvy M. Aldon, the complainant,
who is a daughter of Maria by another man. 
In June of 1982, Maria gave birth to a baby girl, a child of the
appellant.

Every Sunday, Maria Mirabete Aldon and her daughter Juvy would
go to the market place of Jovellar, Albay, to sell abaca fiber. 
They would usually leave the house before 4:00
o’clock a.m. in order to reach the market place before sunrise.^[3]
On the third Sunday of July 1983, however, Juvy was
ordered by the appellant to stay home in order to mind her baby
half-sister.  On that particular Sunday, Juvy was still asleep when her mother left for the
market.  Juvy
was suddenly awakened by a heavy weight pressing on her body and found
appellant on top of her, seeking to copulate with her.  She struggled to free herself from
appellant’s embrace, but to no avail. 
Appellant scolded the victim, got hold of her buttocks and forcibly
inserted his male organ.  After appellant
had gratified his sexual desires, he threatened to cut off Juvy’s
head if she reported the incident to her mother.^[4]

About a week later, Juvy gathered
enough courage to report to her mother what appellant had done.  Maria confronted the appellant who readily
admitted having sexually taken Juvy but asked for
Maria’s forgiveness and for a chance to reform.  Appellant apparently did not
“reform” for he shortly thereafter slapped Juvy,
allegedly for getting two (2) coconuts from a pile which had been separated and
designated for seedlings, and quarreled with and boxed and slapped Maria,
too.  Maria then reported the matter to
her uncle, one Santos Mirabete, who in turn brought
on 1 August 1983, to the
attention of the Barangay Captain of Quitinday, Jovellar, the rape of Juvy.^[5]
Both parties — the appellant and Juvy accompanied by
Maria — were summoned to the house of the Barangay
Captain and there an investigation was conducted.

On 12 August
1983, Juvy was brought to Dr. Eduardo
Martinez for physical examination.  After
the physical examination, Dr. Martinez issued a medical certificate stating the
following:

“External Genitalia: 
No physical injuries

Hymen: Healed laceration at 3, 5, 8 o’clock position

Vagina: Admits 2 examining fingers with ease

No external physical injuries.”^[6]

The evidence for the defense, upon the other hand, consisted
principally of the testimonies of appellant Dominador
Munda; of his sister-in-law, Socorro Munda, who had allegedly gone with Maria to the market on
the Sunday that appellant had raped Juvy Aldon; his nephew,
Charlie Munda; and his daughter, Emmalyn
Munda-Guiriba.

In his testimony, appellant claims he could not have possibly raped Juvy
Aldon on that Sunday, in July 1983, since Juvy had on that day
accompanied her mother Maria and his sister-in-law, Socorro Munda,
to the Jovellar market place.  Appellant contended that Maria had accused
him of raping Juvy because the appellant had mauled
and slapped Maria around on two (2) occasions: 
first, when he tried to bring to Maria’s attention Juvy’s
alleged sexual affairs with two (2) men, which offended Maria no end; second,
when Maria interferred while he, the appellant, was
disciplining Juvy.^[7]

In his Brief,^[8]
appellant in effect suggests that Juvy had accepted
and cooperated with him when he had sexually embraced her.  He points to the fact that the physical
examination had not shown any scratches or contusions or abrasions on Juvy’s body and that Juvy had not
stated that she had bled during or immediately after the forced coitus with appellant.

Appellant’s story
did not impress the trial
court.  The trial court said in its
decision:

“x x x                                     x x x                                         x x
x

The Court has observed the sincerity and candor of the offended
girl.  Like her mother, she is so
dominated by the accused.  Nobody knew
that she was ravished by the common-law-husband of her mother.  She does not have to tell her mother and to have her private parts examined and
face the wrath of the common-law-husband of her mother and the rigors and
perversion of a public trial if it were not for her desire to have the culprit
apprehended and punished.

No young Filipina of rural breeding, for a silly reason of having been
punished for getting two (2) coconuts, would publicly admit she had been
criminally abused by the very common-law-husband of her mother, unless that is
the truth.  For it is her natural
instinct to protect her honor.

x x x                                      x x x                                         x x
x

In a desperate attempt to destroy the veracity of the testimony of
the complainant, the accused tried to show that Juvy,
in her tender age, is unchaste, flirting and going with male companions.  This part of the story of the defense is not
only fantastic but also ridiculous.  Juvy in her youth would not have known the meaning of
[such] amorous adventures.  On a charge
of rape, the fact that, even if true, the offended party may have been of
unchaste character, is no defense.”^[9]

Having gone over the record of this case,
we must agree with the appraisal of the trial court of appellant’s
defense.  Like the trial court, we find
it very difficult to believe that Juvy Aldon, no more than 12 or 13 years of age, had cooperated
with and accepted the sexual attentions of appellant, a man 49-years old,
co-habiting with her mother and living in the same house with her mother and
herself.  The fact that no physical
injuries were found on Juvy Aldon’s
body does not show that force or intimidation had not been exercised upon her, Juvy had in fact testified that she had struggled against
the appellant when he commenced to force himself upon her:

“Q:  Now,
what did you do when he was trying to insert his organ into your organ?

A:   I tried to free myself but I could not
because he scolded me.

Q:  Why were you trying to struggle?

A:   To be able to get away.

Q:  Were you able to get away?

A:   No, sir.

Q:  Why were you not able to get away?

A:   He exerted force on me.

Q:  In what way?

A:   He took hold of my side.

Q:  After he has inserted his organ into your
organs (sic), what did Dominador do?

A:   After I was able to get up he threatened
me that if I report to my mother he would cut off my head.”^[10]
(Underscoring supplied)

The absence of signs of physical injury
is moreover explained by the psychological ascendancy or dominance that
appellant obviously exercised over both the victim and her mother, as well as
by the dire threats which Juvy testified had been
made by appellant immediately after the forced coition.  Further, contrary to appellant’s contention,
the fact that the victim Juvy may have failed
specifically to state that she had bled during or after the forced coitus, does
not show voluntariness or lack of resistance on her
part against the sexual embraces of appellant. 
In fact, Juvy did not fail to refer to the pain inflicted
on her.  In her sworn statement before
the Municipal Circuit Judge, she stated that she was badly hurt when the accused’s male member had penetrated her.^[11]

Appellant also sought to make much of the fact that the victim Juvy
let a week go by before she told her mother that she had been raped.  A delay of a week, under the circumstances of this case, does not show that no
rape had really occurred.  The
relevant circumstances certainly include the fear that appellant must have
instilled in the mind of Juvy and by the constant
presence of the appellant in the house where appellant and Maria and Juvy lived together. 
As noted by this Court in People v. Oydoc^[12]
and in People v. Cruz,^[13] “it is not uncommon for young girls to
conceal for some time the assault on their virtue because of the rapist’s
threat on their lives, more so, when the rapist is the child’s own stepfather
living with her”.^[14]

Finally, appellant points to the results of Juvy’s
physical examination which indicated the presence of healed lacerations on her
hymen.  Appellant claims in his Brief
that according to the examining physician, these “healed old
lacerations” were “about 3 months or a year old at the time of the
examination”.^[15]
What the examining physician did in fact say on cross-examination was simply
this:

“Q:  When
you say that the lacerations of the hymen was (sic) already healed and it (sic)
is already old, could you tell us whether it (sic) was a few weeks old or a few
months old?

A:    I
cannot exactly tell, what I can say is that it could be more than one (1) week,
Sir.”^[16]

It should be recalled that the victim
submitted herself to physical examination two (2) weeks after the rape had been
committed.

Turning to the testimonies of the other witnesses of the defense,
witness Socorro Munda testified that Juvy had gone with her to the market place on all the four
(4) Sundays of July 1983, but that Maria had stayed home having just given
birth to a child of the appellant in mid July 1983.^[17]

Charlie Munda casually testified that
he had seen Juvy one afternoon embracing an
unidentified man in a bamboo grove.^[18]

For her part, Emmalyn Munda-Guiriba stated that
during the month of July 1983, she was frequently in the house of her
father, the appellant.  She slept there
with Juvy Aldon, but could
not remember if Juvy left the house to go to the Jovellar market place on the third Sunday of July
1983.  Emmalyn
was certain, however, that on the first and second Sundays of July 1983, Juvy stayed home the whole day.^[19]

The trial court did not find the above testimony of the defense
witnesses persuasive:

“The testimonies of the witnesses presented by the accused,
Socorro Munda and Emmalyn Munda-Guiriba, do not corroborate that of the accused and
can not be given any credance (sic).  The story of the accused that he could not
have raped Juvy because she was with her mother to
market at Jovellar
is belied by Emmalyn Munda-Guiriba
who testified on cross-examination that Juvy was in the house
every morning in the whole Sundays of July
1983.  Socorro Munda
also testified that Maria could not come with her to the market because she
delivered a child in the middle of July,
1983.  The evidence shows that
Maria delivered a child as early as June
11, 1982.  Evidently, the
accused had all the opportunity to be with the complainant in one of the
Sundays of July 1983.

x x x                                      x x x                                         x x
x“^[20]

Once more, we find no reason to disagree
with the appraisal by the trial court of the testimony of these witnesses.  It is common-place doctrine that the
evaluation of the trial court of the credit-worthiness of the testimony given
before it, the court having had the opportunity to observe the detailed
behavior of said witnesses, must be accorded great respect.^[21]
Appellant has not given any reason why we should ascribe any more importance to
the foregoing testimonies than that given them by the trial court.

WHEREFORE, the Decision of the trial court finding
appellant guilty of the crime of rape beyond reasonable doubt is hereby
AFFIRMED, with the modification that the accused is hereby ORDERED to pay the
victim Juvy Aldon, the sum
of P30,000.00^[22]
rather than P3,000.00, as damages.  Costs
against appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Gutierrez, Jr., Bidin, and Cortes, JJ., concur.

Fernan, C.J., (Chairman), on leave.

^[1] Rollo, p. 5.

^[2] Id., p. 30.

^[3] TSN, 25 June 1984, p. 19.

^[4] TSN, 13 February 1984, pp. 3-4.

^[5] TSN, 30 July 1984, p. 4.

^[6] Exhibit “D”, Folder of Exhibits, p.
69.

^[7] Appellant’s
Brief, pp. 4-5; Rollo, pp. 40–41.

^[8] Id., p. 6; Rollo, p. 42.

^[9] Rollo, pp. 28-30.

^[10]
TSN, 13 February 1984, p.
4.

^[11]
Exhibit “A”, Folder of Exhibits, p. 3.

^[12] 125 SCRA 250 (1953).

^[13]
151 SCRA 609 (1987).

^[14]
125 SCRA at 256.

^[15]
Appellant’s Brief, p. 8; Rollo, p. 35, et.
seq.

^[16]
TSN, 30 July 1984, p. 16.

^[17] TSN, 24 September 1984, pp. 91 & 93.

^[18] Id., p. 101.

^[19] Id., pp. 104-105.

^[20] Rollo, pp. 29-30.

^[21]
People v. Equac, 85 SCRA 665 (1977); People v. Palon,
127 SCRA 529 (1984); People v.
Ancheta, 148 SCRA
178 (1987); People v. Rondina, 149 SCRA 128 (1987); People v. Taduyo, 154 SCRA 349
(1987); People v. Flores, G.R. No. 66039, 7 July 1989.

^[22]
E.g., People v. Estebal, 173 SCRA 209 (1989).