Girl, 13, accuses broadcaster of raping her in car

Last July 3, a 13-year- old girl visited a radio station and looked for a broadcaster who has employed her mother as his laundrywoman.

The girl was told that the broadcaster she was looking for was in Marawi City. She asked for seven pesos for jeepney fare from a man inside the radio station so she could go home to Labangon, Cebu City. The man was the broadcaster’s program co-anchor and he offered to give her a ride home instead.

She got into his car but instead of being brought home straight, the man stopped the car at a certain part of the road leading to her address, and then raped her.

This was what the girl told the Women and Children’s Protection Desk of the Parian Police Station when she reported the incident almost two weeks later.

Neither the girl nor the co-anchor are being named in the news story based on guidelines for reporting on children and cases of sexual violence.

The co-anchor, who is a lawyer and was married recently, took it upon himself to express his side on his Facebook account.

He said he didn’t want his “silence to be misconstrued as guilt” and that the girl’s accusation is “an attack not just to me but to the media institutions and the legal profession where I am ordained to serve.” More about this.

A 13-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a radio broadcaster, who is also a lawyer, inside his car on Zamora St., Barangay Parian, Cebu City last July 4.

The radio broadcaster allegedly forced himself on the girl, who went to the radio station to look for a reporter to ask for money for a school project.

The reporter was in Marawi for relief efforts so she approached the lawyer instead.

When she asked him for P7 to go home, he allegedly offered to drop her off on A. Lopez St. in Barangay Labangon where she lives.

When they arrived in Parian, he allegedly raped her.

Senior Insp. Dexter Basirgo, chief of the Parian Police Station, said that a team from the Women and Children's Protection Desk is securing a copy of the footage from the security camera in the area to check if the radio broadcaster's car was there when the incident allegedly happened.

"The minor was afraid that's why it took a long time for her to report what happened, the mother said. But she did not say if she was threatened," Basirgo said.

He said that girl's mother is willing to file charges against the radio broadcaster.

"They have shown us the medical-legal documents, which stated that there was a laceration and the psychological result of the child coming from the pink room," Basirgo said.

The radio broadcaster (whose name is being withheld to protect the victim's identity) denied the allegation, saying it was "a plain and simple attack not just to me but to the media institutions and the legal profession where I am ordained to serve."

He said he will face his accusers in due time.

"In the meantime, may I appeal to all to suspend judgment upon my being on the muzzy issues coated with great and orchestrated deceptions," he added. /