Mary (not her real name) told authorities that a male friend, which she later identified as Lloyd Espinosa, fetched her from her boarding house last Friday and took her to a beer garden in Barangay Poblacion in Arakan.
At the bar, she met a female friend and three other male friends, one of whom was identified as Rupert Marcelino who works as a collector of an appliance store in Kidapawan City.
After a drinking session, instead of going back home, Espinosa and Marcelino allegedly took her to an abandoned lot in Poblacion and raped her.
Mary said that even if she wanted to fight back she felt so weak and tired at that time from drinking beer.
After that, she was taken to a lodging house in Barangay Poblacion in Antipas, a town adjacent to Arakan, where she was again reportedly raped.
It was Mary’s father that reported to Arakan police that she was missing.
But when police searched for Mary they found her in one of the lodging houses in the area.
Senior Insp. Benjamin Rioflorido, chief of Arakan police, said that after Mary and another witness executed their affidavits last Saturday, he immediately ordered a massive manhunt against Espinosa and Marcelino.
He said his men even went to Kidapawan City to look for the suspects.
“Yet, our men failed to locate the suspects. So, instead of filing this case through inquest proceedings, we’ll do it on a regular basis,” he explained.
Rioflorido said that the suspects could have gone into hiding after learning of the charges against them.
“We’ll make them liable for what they’ve done. We want justice served for the rape victim,” he said.
The rape in Arakan town is the second to be reported in North Cotabato this month.
On February 25, ‘Angelie’ (not her real name), a 17-year old first year student of the University of Southern Mindanao, was allegedly raped by an influential politician in Datu Montawal, Maguindanao.
On Monday, the Justice for Angelie Movement started the ‘Piso-Piso para kay Angelie’ campaign to fund the legal battle of the rape victim. (MindaNews)