Rape victim hangs self, vows to return from grave

"Huwag kayong umiyak. Babalik ako sa ikatlong araw para usigin ang mga umapi sa akin."

These were the parting words of a 16-year-old housemaid from Misamis Oriental, who was found dead hanging from a ceiling beam in the house of her employers in Barangay 77, Caloocan City, written as a suicide note in her diary.

The girl, who had been employed by a couple for only three weeks, was found hanging with an electrical cord looped around her neck at around 10:30 a.m. last Tuesday.

Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) medico-legal officer Senior Inspector Filemon Porciuncula said Abayan could have been dead between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Sept. 21.

The girl wrote the cryptic words in a 20-page dark blue diary she kept. It was from there where probers and everyone who knew her found out that she had been sexually abused by a townmate as well as her father, who she did not name.

She narrated in her suicide letter addressed to her father, mother and her employers, that she ran away from her home in Mindanao to escape the sexual molestations.

She also warned not to touch her cadaver. "Huwag ninyo akong ililibing. Ang sinumang gagalaw sa aking katawan ay mananagot," she said. SPO4 Raymundo Ramos, forensic aide who assisted Porciuncula in the autopsy, said the girl was the 29,000th body he handled, but it was only this time that he felt fear.

The victim also asked her father, who allegedly molested her previously, not to molest her younger sister, who was left in their hometown.

The victim, who said she wanted very much to become a famous singer, said in her letter that upon her death, she would visit the F4, the Taiwanese pop singing group, and join them.

The victim also told her employers not to worry. "Ma’am, Sir, patawad sa aking mga nagawa, sa perwisyo. Yung nabasag na ilaw. Hayaan nyo, pag bumalik ang espiritu ko sa ibang tao, mababayaran ko kayo," she said.

The diary has been sent to the PNP Crime Laboratory at Camp Crame to help determine if there was foul play involved.