CLOSING STATEMENT OF THE PROSECUTION

May it please the court and the council members, my name is Deborah Perez, and we the
prosecution represent the Republic of the Philippines. We ask the Honourable Court to carefully
consider the merits of the Prosecution as it involves a crime where only the accused and the
victim know what truly happened.

Rape is a painful and traumatic experience which is hard to forget. It is something that causes
deep psychological wounds and casts a stigma upon the victim, scarring her psyche for life.

A victim of rape is left with no other choice but to save herself or to remain unsaved. The victim
has a lifetime of coping, of trying to understand, of asking questions and the worst part, of
knowing that the rapist is still alive and may someday escape or be released.

Jurisprudence instructs us that no woman would concoct a story of defloration and thereafter
pervert herself by being subjected to public trial, if she was not motivated solely by the desire to
obtain justice for the wrong committed against her. From the victim’s perspective, there is
nothing more violative of her personal autonomy. The psychological and emotional scars from a
sexual assault never fully heal.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are confronted with a situation here where the accused openly
admitted that he indeed had sexual intercourse with the victim, but denies the lack of consent of
the latter by reason of the alleged relationship between them.

The accused made it appear that the alleged romantic relationship between him and the vicitm
justified his act of having sexual intercourse with the latter. The sweetheart defense is not usually
regarded with favour in the absence of strong corroboration. This is because the mere fact that
the accused and the victim were lovers should not exculpate him from the criminal liability of
rape. (Pp. v. Mahinay)

An allegation of a “love relationship” between the parties, even if found to be true do not
eliminate the use of force to consummate the crime because the gravamen of rape is the carnal
knowledge of a woman against her will and without her consent.

It should be borne in mind that love is not a license for carnal intercourse. Even granting that the
accused and the victim were really sweethearts, that fact alone would not negate the commission
of rape. A sweetheart cannot be forced to have sex against her will. (In People v Orquina)

Consent does not mean the existence of a prior or current relationship between the accused and
the victim and it surely does not mean that there is consent when the victim failed to resist a
particular sexual act.

In the crime of rape, a basic element is when a woman is deprived of reason or otherwise
unconscious.
The accused’s lewd design can be readily shown when he continuously offered alcoholic drinks
to the victim to put the victim in a state where she would be deprived of reason and eventually
fail to resist the lewd design of the accused.

To reiterate, the accused, by reason of the judicial admission in their counter affidavit, indeed
had sex with the victim. Such act is not disputed. Hence, the prosecution need not present further
evidence to prove such fact. What remains to be proven by the prosecution is the lack of consent
from the victim, constituting the crime of rape.

The prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the victim was in a state of
drunkenness which completely deprived her will power to give her consent. The victim was so
dead-drunk that she could not speak or even stand. It was highly impossible for the victim, as
alleged by the accused in their counter-affidavit, to have hugged, caressed, and told the accused
she loves him. There was no opportunity for the victim to object or give consent to the sexual
acts of the accused as she was not in the right mental state to give consent.

The victim affirmed that when she woke up, the crime of rape committed by the accused was
already consummated, having carnal knowledge with the victim while she was unconscious for
being asleep. This is buttressed by the fact that the victim woke up feeling pain in her upper
thighs and in her private part with the accused lying beside her, drunk and naked.

During the testimony of the victim, she appeared straightforward, positive, and convincing in her
testimony. We believe that such personal demeanor of the victim and the circumstantial evidence
presented are persuasive enough to satisfy this court that the crime charged was indeed
perpetrated by the accused.

Ladies and gentlemen, Your Honor, having carnal knowledge of a woman who is deprived of
reason or is otherwise unconscious is rape under Art. 266-A of the Revised Penal Code and
under R.A. 8353 or The Anti-Rape law.

With the foregoing, Your Honor, the prosecution, has proven beyond reasonable doubt all the
elements constituting rape. Hence, the accused, ZANDO MANALO, should be convicted for the
crime charged and we further pray that the accused be ordered to pay moral damages in the
amount of P100,000.00.