Boy, 17, ‘raped’ 2 sisters, cousin

CEBU, Philippines - A 17-year-old boy was taken into custody by police after allegedly raping his two stepsisters aged six and seven, and their cousin aged three, inside their grandmother’s room in Sitio Sewage, Barangay Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City, Wednesday evening.

Police Officer 1 Lucelyn Estrelloso of the Pusok Police Station said the grandmother, mother and aunt of the three girls went to the police office to report that the girls had been raped by the boy, a fourth year high school student.

The last incident reportedly happened midnight Tuesday when the boy allegedly molested the seven-year-old by touching her genitals.

It was the six-year-old who revealed what happened to her grandmother around 6 p.m. Wednesday by demonstrating what the boy frequently did to them, Estolloso said.

Estrelloso added that she contacted the Gun-ob Police Station to pick up the minor, who reportedly manned the family’s vegetable store in the Barangay Poblacion market.

The boy denied all the accusations but the six-year-old said the alleged sexual act has been going on for more than a year, usually during afternoon siesta, when the boy puts them to sleep.

The mother and grandmother of the girls go home only every weekend, only the boy and his step aunt are left to watch their house in Barangay Pusok.

The boy was taken to the Department of Social Welfare and Development while the girls were taken to the Pink Room of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center. The police are still waiting for the results of their examination.

Adopted Yolanda Survivor

Senior Inspector Judith Besas, chief of Women and Children Protection Desk of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office, said the boy has no blood relation to the victim’s family and was adopted.

The mother of the sisters, a former Overseas Filipino Worker in Japan and a student under Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalent and Accreditation Program in one of the schools in Cebu City, went to Tacloban, Leyte, in 2013 to see her former husband and saw the boy, who was around 15 years old wandering the streets after the typhoon Yolanda struck the province.

She pitied the boy and decided to take him in and bring him home to Barangay Pusok. She even paid for his education in a public school in Barangay Pajo where the sisters also go to school.

Besas said the mother expressed regret in adopting the boy after the incident while the grandmother and aunt said they could not imagine the boy’s alleged transgressions because of his innocent looks.

An odd thing the grandmother noticed, Besas reported, is that the boy would react strangely when he hears about rape cases being reported on television.

Besas also said the grandmother added that the boy does not have any friends except for a few people who help the family in their vegetable store. — /BRP (FREEMAN)