Family of 13-year-old girl applies for witness protection

FEARING for their safety, the family of a 13-year-old girl who claimed to have been raped by lawyer-broadcaster Juril Patiño, has applied in the Witness Protection Program (WPP) of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The WPP application for the girl, her mother and two siblings, was endorsed by the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7).

Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak, deputy mayor on police matters, said that under the WPP, the girl and her mother will be provided with free board and lodging. Tumulak said the city will also provide livelihood assistance to the girl’s parents. “They will undergo training… (We will) teach them how to catch fish. We will not encourage them to be lazy,” Tumulak said.

The girl’s father is a trisikad (cycle rickshaw) driver while the mother is a laundry woman. Tumulak is awaiting results of a psychological and medical evaluation conducted at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) on the girl.

Meanwhile, the girl’s father is asking authorities to expand the WPP coverage to include their two other children.

NBI-7 director Patricio Bernales told CDN that he had ordered the girl’s siblings fetched from school and brought to a safe place following the father’s claims that the kids were being stalked by a male stranger who earlier came looking for him and his wife.

Bernales hoped that the family’s WPP application will be approved soon.

Rape charges were filed by NBI-7 against Patiño, a news anchor and radio commentator of Brigada FM last Wednesday for allegedly raping the girl inside his car in Barangay Pari-an, Cebu City, last July 4 after he reportedly offered the girl a ride home.