Five deaths for rapist-dad

A Caloocan City Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge slapped five death sentences on a shabu-addicted father after he was found guilty of raping his two teenage daughters several times in a period of three years starting 1995 in Caloocan City.

In an eight-page decision, Judge Silvestre Bello Jr. said Enrique Ceballos, of Samson Road, Caloocan City, should die by lethal injection.

In addition, the convict was also sentenced to suffer a maximum six years in jail for acts of lasciviousness and fined him P200,000 for moral damages.

Records showed Ceballos turned his daughters, then 14 and 17 years old, into virtual sex slaves for almost three years, even before their mother, the suspect’s wife, first worked in Qatar in May 1996.

The older victim, now married, told the court her father began raping her in December 1995 as she slept in their bedroom of their two-storey home in Caloocan City.

She said the first incident took place when she was 14 on Christmas Day. The abuses were repeated on a regular basis for more or less 10 times in a month until July 16, 1996.

The elder victim said she did not reveal her ordeal because her father threatened to create a scandal in their neighborhood if she reported the incident to anybody.

She noted that in one instance, her sister, witnessed how she was being abused by the accused. She later learned that her sister was also being raped by her father.

With the help of friends, she decided to report their ordeal to the police. Their mother returned home from the Middle East in November 1998 after hearing of the sisters’ ordeal from other persons.

The court believed the testimony of the sisters which they saw as "straightforward, categorical and convincing."

"Showing no signs of remorse, they (victims) braved the embarrassment and stigma of a public trial, came forward and courageously revealed the dastardly acts of their own father," the court said.

The court said the defense of the accused relied heavily on simple denials of the allegation, calling them "impossible, if not incredulous."

"Denial is inherently weak and cannot prevail over the rape victims’ positive identification of their ravisher," the court pointed out.

Meanwhile, the Quezon City RTC sentenced a 24-year-old man to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of raping a 34-year-old mentally-challenged woman two years ago.

Ruben Ebron, a helper, of Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City, was also ordered to pay the victim P50,000 for moral damages.

Judge Jose Catral Mendoza said the prosecution was able to establish Ebron’s guilt in the rape of the victim, who has the intellectual capacity of a seven-year-old in Balintawak, Quezon City on Sept. 23, 2000. – With Pia Lee-Brago