PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. ANGELITO BAUTISTA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

The Court is once again asked to choose between two conflicting
versions of a single nocturnal incident. Believing the victim’s story would lead to a vindication of a wrong done
upon her person, her honor and her very virtue. On the other hand, disbelieving her and accepting instead the
tale of the alleged culprit would spell freedom to a man charged with a
dastardly deed.

Her story follows.

At around 9:00 o’clock in the evening of April 5, 1981, Estrella
Soni, a 21-year old unmarried resident of Barrio Palasan, Valenzuela, Metro
Manila, and her boyfriend (now husband), Wilfredo Guantero, were passing
through the cemetery of Palasan on their way home after watching a singing
contest at the barangay hall when two men suddenly appeared and accosted
them. They recognized one as
accused-appellant Angelito Bautista, Estrella’s neighbor and landlord. Bautista grabbed Estrella on the upper arm
and told Wilfredo to leave them while poking a bolo at him. Fearing for his life, Wilfredo ran to a
friend’s house and together they went to the barangay hall to seek assistance.

Bautista, who reeked of liquor and was trembling while holding
Estrella by the shoulder, insisted on accompanying her home. When she refused, he pulled her to a grassy
portion of the field and started undressing her. Estrella did not notice where the other man went.

Estrella cried as she unsuccessfully struggled to free herself
from Bautista, who was able to remove her panty. In her weak state, she could only watch him kneel beside her and
remove his pants and briefs with his right hand, the other being busy holding
her right shoulder. As he mounted her,
she tried to push him away but he was very heavy. Her feeble attempts to free herself were useless, as he managed
to insert his organ into her private part. She felt pain in her lower abdomen. He moved his buttocks up and down, all the while attempting to kiss her
and fondle her breast. After a while,
she felt something warm flow out from him.

Thereafter, Bautista stood up and put on his briefs and
pants. When he seemed to be searching
for something, Estrella seized the chance to flee. He chased her, but she found a hiding place where she put on her
panty. She ran to her auntie’s house
and chanced upon her cousin, Valeriana Lania, to whom she recounted her
ordeal. Valeriana, in turn, told
Estrella’s parents about the incident.

In the meantime, Wilfredo and his companions went to the place
where he left Estrella but they found nobody there. When they returned to the barangay hall; Estrella was already
there with her parents answering the questions of the barangay captain. Later, she was brought to the emergency
hospital in Polo for examination.

The following morning, Estrella was taken to the National Bureau
of Investigation where she was examined by the medico-legal officer. Dr. Ruben Añgobung found that she had
hymenal lacerations and concluded that such genital findings are compatible
with intercourse with a man on or about the alleged date of commission of the
offense, although she suffered no extragenital physical injuries.^[1]

Bautista expectedly told a different tale.

He testified that on the night of April 5, 1981, he bought
medicine at a local drugstore and, on the way home, passed through the cemetery
of Palasan on a borrowed bicycle. Near
his parents’ tomb, he noticed three or four heads behind the tomb. He yelled, “What are you doing
there?” The unidentified persons jumped and ran. He also observed, at about five meters from his mother’s grave, a
naked man jump and run away. He
identified the man as Wilfredo Guantero. When he moved closer, he saw a woman lying down with her skirt raised. She stood up and introduced herself as
Estrella, which he already knew as they are neighbors. He ran after the fleeing man but was not
able to catch up with him; so he just cursed the latter.

Unlike Estrella’s testimony, which was corroborated in part by
Wilfredo and by the physician who attended to her within hours after the
incident, Bautista’s claim is wholly unsubstantiated. Instead, they presented Bautista’s sister-in-law, Ma. Victoria
Ponce, and her mother Matilde to suggest to the court that the rape charge may
have been caused by a simple misunderstanding between Bautista and Estrella’s
family over a tenancy dispute, much like what had happened in 1979, when Ma.
Victoria charged Bautista with rape only to withdraw the same also on ground of
misunderstanding.

After trial conducted principally by Judges Eduardo P. Caguioa
and Samilo N. Barlongay, decision was rendered on July 7, 1987 by Judge
Teresita Dizon-Capulong of the Regional Trial Court of Valenzuela, Branch 172,
the dispositive portion of which read thus:

“From the evidence adduced the Court is convinced that the
accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of rape punishable by
Article 335 (1) 1st paragraph of reclusion perpetua and all the subsidiary
penalties imposed by law, and to pay the costs.

SO ORDERED.”^[2]

In this appeal, Bautista raises the following points to bolster
his claim of innocence:

a) The sudden
disappearance of Bautista’s alleged companion is absurd, considering that he
could have assisted Bautista in the offense.

b) Was Estrella pulled to
the grassy portion of the field or did she merely walk?

c) Estrella’s testimony is
silent as to whether there was intimidation.

d) The bolo allegedly used
by Bautista in intimidating Estrella and Wilfredo was never mentioned in the
course of Estrella’s testimony.

e) Estrella’s underwear
was intact, albeit with loose garter, indicating the absence of a struggle.

f) Why did Estrella
attempt to escape only after, not before or during, the alleged sexual
intercourse?

g) Estrella’s testimony
that she was forced to follow when Bautista’s buttocks moved up is
“contrary to the laws of gravity,” for nothing could “make her
follow the going up of the accused-appellant’s buttocks except her voluntary
pushing up of her own buttocks.”

The doctor’s finding that there are no extragenital physical
injuries indicates absence of force.

It is obvious that these
are factual conclusions of the trial court which are ordinarily respected on
appeal owing to the position of the trial judge who personally saw and heard
the witnesses testify. This
rule, however, need not apply in its full rigor to the case at bench, where two
judges conducted the trial and the decision was eventually written by a third.

Still, Judge Dizon-Capulong, while recognizing this handicap,
concluded that the trial was properly conducted by her predecessors and that
the prosecution was able to sufficiently establish the culpability of the
accused-appellant. Accordingly, she
rendered judgment applying the principles governing rape cases.

It is not disputed that Estrella suffered no physical
injuries. Yet the absence of external
signs of injury does not necessarily negate the commission of rape, especially
when the victim was so intimidated by the offender into submission.^[3]

Intimidation would also explain why there are no traces of
struggle which would indicate that the victim fought off her attacker. Intimidation was proven in this case when
Bautista, in an intoxicated state and with a companion, suddenly appeared at
night in a deserted cemetery before Estrella and Wilfredo while holding a bolo
and uttering threats. The mysterious
vanishing act of the other man is a non-issue in this case. Much less should it be taken against
Estrella who merely recounted to the court what she could remember of her
ordeal. Wilfredo insisted that there
was a bolo, around fifteen inches long, which so instilled fear in him as to
force him to leave his sweetheart in the company of Bautista, although this was
hardly mentioned by Estrella.

In any case, people react differently to a given situation.^[4]
While some victims of rape raise an outcry, others simply weep in helpless
protest. Estrella must belong to the
latter class.

More convincing is that Estrella, being the unmarried Filipina
that she was on the night that she was abused, would not publicly admit that
she had been raped by a man, voluntarily allow herself to be medically probed,
and endure humiliating and quite delicate questions in the course of a full
blown trial with her tormentor glowering at her just across the courtroom, if
her accusations were merely malicious concoctions.^[5]

IN VIEW OF THE
FOREGOING, the
conviction of Angelito Bautista is hereby AFFIRMED
with the MODIFICATION that
in addition to the penalty of reclusion perpetua, he is also
ordered to INDEMNIFY Estrella
Soni the amount of P30,000.00 by way of damages.

SO ORDERED.

Feliciano, (Chairman), Bidin, Melo, and Vitug, JJ., concur.

^[1]
TSN, October 18, 1982, pp. 9-10; Exhibit “B,” Records, p. 14.

^[2]
Rollo, p. 25.

^[3]
People v. Arenas, 198 SCRA 172 (1991); People v. Pasco, 181 SCRA
233 (1990); People v. Viray, 164 SCRA 135 (1988); People v.
Monteverde, 142 SCRA 668 (1986); People v. Malabad, 133 SCRA 392 (1984).

^[4]
People v. Herrick, 187 SCRA 364 (1990).

^[5]
People v. Santiago, 197 SCRA 556 (1991); People v. Patilan, 197
SCRA 354 (1991).