This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2001-10-23 |
QUISUMBING, J. |
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| We agree with the trial court that no evidentiary weight could be given to the self-serving declarations of appellant. His ratiocination that the rapes could not have been committed in a small house where many people were living deserves scant consideration. We have held time and again that rape does not occur only in seclusion[23] and can be committed in the unlikeliest of places.[24] Situs of rape has been inside a house where there were other occupants;[25] in a room adjacent to where the victim's family was sleeping;[26] or even in a room which the victim shared with the sisters of the accused.[27] Among couples with big families who live in cramped quarters, the presence of other members of the family is not necessarily a deterrent to the commission of rape.[28] It is not impossible for the rape to take place inside a small house with no partition and with five occupants therein, including the accused and the victim.[29] Lust is no respecter of time and place.[30] The scenario illustrated by private complainants wherein they were raped inside their room by their own father is therefore not impossible nor incredible. It may seem improbable but as we held in one case: x x x | |||||