Twin scandals shake Cebu Archdiocese

Fresh from the 2006 scandal where a priest was accused of raping his scholar, another priest was accused of acts of lasciviousness while hearing confessions during a religious seminar at a public high school this year.

However, the court has dropped criminal charges against Fr. Benedicto Ejares and Fr. Joey Belciña consecutively this year.

EJARES

Ejares was charged with acts of lasciviousness after he allegedly inappropriately touched female high school students during one-on-one confessions during a religious seminar at the Abellana National High School last November 14, 2006.

But prosecutors threw out the charges two criminal charges for alleged sexual misconduct saying it would require an unreasonable overstretching of one’s imagination to conclude that the priest’s gestures —touching the arms, backs and shoulders of the girls— were done with “lewd designs”.

The Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office said the priest’s acts might be considered a ground for a lighter charge of unjust vexation.  But time had already run out and the two-month period to file that complaint under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code had lapsed, forcing prosecutors to dismiss the second charge.

The prosecutors said that while the alleged incident occurred on November 2006 the filing of the complaint was made on April 11, 2007.

Cebu City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon, in a resolution, said there was no sufficient evidence to elevate the case to the Regional Trial Court.

Almost 20 students initially said they were harassed during confession by Ejares but only seven ended up submitting sworn statements to the National Bureau of Investigation.

In written testimonies and media interviews, ANHS students described how Ejares put his arms around them, caressed their arms and backs and toyed with their bra straps while hearing their individual confessions at the grandstand of the Cebu City Sports Center.

The girls said they felt degraded, some of them crying in shock afterward.  Many of the students stopped going to Mass altogether or having their confessions.

Two of seven girls who earlier testified against the priest called the decision “unfair”.

One of them, a sixteen-year-old, told her family she will  demand a reinvestigation.

Now in her senior year at the ANHS, the complainant said the decision caught them by surprise.

After the incident Ejares has not been allowed to celebrate Mass in public or hear confessions upon orders of Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal.

Until now Vidal said Ejares cannot yet administer confession.

Ejares, a 1989 graduate of the San Carlos Seminary College in Cebu, was one of six priests who heard confessions of the students during the religious seminar.

The prosecutor’s resolution said it could just have been the priest’s “style” or habit to touch penitents during confession.  It also noted that Ejares did not touch the girls’ “private parts”.

“It would, therefore, require an unreasonable overstretching of one’s imagination in order to conclude that, viewed in the light of the solemnity and sanctity of the event during which these controversial acts were performed in broad daylight and in the midst of several priests and penitents, respondent’s acts were meant to be lascivious and with lewd designs,” the resolution read.

For months Ejares’ whereabouts became a mystery, with officials of the Cebu Archdiocese claiming they didn’t know where he was.  Vidal said he had a serious talk with the priest immediately after the case became public and suspended Ejares’ authority to offer Mass and hear confession, but later said he lost track of the priest.

Amid speculation that the priest was hiding and somehow managed to go abroad, the NBI sent a subpoena to the cardinal’s residence only to have it returned with the advice that Ejares was not there.

At the time he was tapped for the religious seminar, Ejares had no parish assignment, a floating status that was never specifically explained by his superiors.  Clergy sources, speaking off record, confirmed Ejares had undergone counseling in the past after being the subject of similar complaints about his conduct with female parishioners.

He surfaced only after hiring a lawyer to answer the charges in the prosecutor’s office sometime in May, when it was confirmed that he had, indeed, gone to the United States for several weeks.

Ejares was assigned at the Sta. Lucia parish church in Asturias town from 1998 until 2002.  Former parishioners described him as a jolly, well-liked priest with a sense of humor.  He was also credited for the construction of a badly-needed convent as quarters for the parish priest.

BELCIÑA

Last year, the Cebu City prosecutor’s office also threw out three rape charges against Fr. Jose “Joey” Belciña.

But because the court ruled that the Danao City priest, 36, had sexual relations with the complainant, a parish scholar who was 17 years old at the time, he was also held liable for violation of a special law that protects children from abuse.

The prosecutors find that there was no force, threat or intimidation when the sexual intercourse happened between them on July 22, 2005, the panel of three prosecutors said in their June 19 resolution.

In her original affidavit, the complainant claimed that she was sexually abused thrice in the priest’s bedroom in the parish convent in Maslog, Danao City —on July 22 and December 25, 2005 and on January 28, 2006.

Prosecutors said they were convinced that no rape took place.

They said the girl’s conduct during and after the alleged rape was found to be unusual, she never shouted for help or struggled with the priest while he was undressing her “when she obviously had ample time to do so.”

“The degree of resistance offered by complainant to respondent’s advances while the alleged rape was going on also renders her claim that she was forced or intimidated into having sexual intercourse with the respondent doubtful,” the prosecutors said.

“What is most telling that there was in fact no rape is the behavior of the complainant right after the alleged incidents.”

The girl said that right after the alleged rape, she went out with her boyfriend, Justin, to the plaza but never told him about what happened.

She also continued hearing Mass officiated by the priest two days after the first incident on July 22, 2005 and went on receiving her allowance from Belciña.

The prosecutors could not see why the girl did not report the incident right away.

The first person she talked to about the alleged attack was her homeroom adviser in school months later.

“For someone who has allegedly undergone such a traumatic experience as rape, complainant’s reaction and behavior after the alleged incident is too casual and nonchalant, to say the least. Consequently it is hard to believe that she in fact had been raped by respondent,” the prosecutors said.

“If indeed she had been raped before by this man, why would she willingly place herself at a great risk of being raped again by entering his room all by herself,” they said.

Cebu City Assistant Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane signed the resolution with assistant prosecutors Mario Edgardo Montenegro and Lineth Lapinid.

After being found liable for violation of Section 5, Article III of Republic Act 7610, the law on Special Protection of Filipino Children, Belciña was relieved of his duties as a parish priest in Danao City when the case broke last February of 2006. 

Loyal parishioners held prayer rallies to express their support and still visit him in his new quarters in the youth center in the Archbishop’s Palace in Cebu City. — Jasmin R. Uy/BRP