Isabela town mayor says rape charges politically motivated

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – A re-electionist mayor of Isabela’s southern town of Cordon claimed that the rape charges filed against him was “politically motivated.”

“God knows I have nothing to do with the charges concocted against me,” Cordon Mayor Laurencio Zuñiga said in a radio interview last Monday.

Zuñiga is facing rape charges before the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed earlier this month by a mother and her daughter, the mayor’s alleged sex slave since she was 13 years old. The supposed victim is reportedly now 17 years old.

Reports said one of the pieces of evidence submitted before the DOJ included a recorded conversation in the victim’s supposed encounter with the mayor last December.

The alleged rape victim is now under the custody of the provincial social welfare office.

The Isabela prosecutor’s office has issued summons to Zuñiga last week, but the mayor claimed in the interview that he has yet to receive such summons in connection with the case filed against him.

Zuñiga, who is seeking his third and final term under the Liberal Party in the May polls, said he is certain that politics has something to do with the case filed against him.

“I will just leave everything to God, especially those behind all this mess,” he said.

Zuñiga is facing board member Amado Vallejo, a close political ally of the Dys, in the mayoral race. Vallejo, himself, is a former three-term mayor of Cordon town.

In an earlier interview with The STAR, Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy III denied having something to do with the filing of rape charges against Zuñiga.

“This is not about politics. This is a personal issue between the mayor and his accuser. Besides, we don’t have any hand in the complainant’s filing the case,” he said.

Dy, a local stalwart of the Nationalist People’s Coalition which is the ruling party in Isabela, admitted having approached by the complainant and her family for possible legal assistance sometime last December.

“But I just referred them to the proper offices like the social welfare office, knowing how sensitive the issue is. We don’t want that the case will be misconstrued as having something to do with politics,” he said.