75-year-old woman raped, robbed in Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - A 75-year-old woman was raped and robbed by an unidentified person who entered her house in Barangay Can-asujan, Carcar City, while she was sleeping yesterday dawn.

The victim said she was sleeping inside her room when the person, who was wearing a bonnet, entered and raped her.

The intruder then demanded her cash and punched her on the left side of her body when she initially refused to tell him. She later told him she kept money in the drawer and he took P30,000 from there and P4,000 from her wallet before leaving.

The victim sought help from her son who was living nearby. He accompanied her to the Carcar Police Station and reported the incident.

She was then brought to the Carcar District Hospital before she was referred to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, where she is currently confined.

SPO1 Reynaldo Fuentes, Carcar police investigator, said that the assailant gained entrance to her house by detaching the bamboo splits of the kitchen counter. Once inside, he went directly to her room.

The victim lived alone in the house, all of her children lived apart from her although one of her sons lived nearby.

Fuentes said that robbery was really the motive of the crime since the victim is a small-time lender in the barangay.

Last week she confronted two of her borrowers after they failed to pay her, one was able to settle but the other failed.

The police believed that the robber lives nearby and knows the victim well.

“Taga-diha ra na kay nag-bonnet man posibleng mahadlok masakpan kay if dili taga diha di mag-bonnet kay wala may nakaila,” Fuentes said. —/BRP   - (THE FREEMAN)