It would have been an occasion for the Catanduanes police to crow about its accomplishments as far as Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC) is concerned, based on the considerable decrease in rape cases in the first half of 2024.
Its report to the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) showed that rape cases involving children dropped to 19 this year, compared to 24 in the first half of 2023, while those committed against women fell from the previous six (6) cases to just one from January to June 2024.
However, VAWC incidents reached a total of 67 cases for the same period, or an increase of 41 cases from the 26 recorded last year.
Of the 67 cases, 25 of the victims were women while 42 were children, the report stated.
The same report provided profiles of the victims and suspects but for rape cases only, with the profiling focused on age and economic status.
It did not differentiate among the victims with regards to gender, although it may be assumed that the victims were female and the suspects male.
There was likewise no breakdown of the VAWC cases reported and how many involved physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence or economic abuse, or the gender of the victims and suspects.
Thus, the report does not present a clearer picture of the violent crimes being committed against women and children in this Happy Island.
Nevertheless, the information presented is instructive in the sense that the stakeholders in the anti-VAWC campaign are advised to focus on the families, with the majority of the suspects either family members (12) or neighbors (5) familiar to the victims.
To its credit, the Catanduanes police is actively engaged in an all-out advocacy campaign on laws protecting women and children in partnership with other agencies, stakeholders and non-government organizations.
Camp Francisco Camacho’s leading role in urging the 11 police stations to implement VAWC best practices has most likely encouraged victims to seek help from the authorities, thus resulting in the increase of reported cases.
Much remains to be done, however, as a ranking police officer pointed out, saying that the decline of moral values in the home is a major contributor to VAWC.
This needs to be addressed by greater involvement of the local government units, the religious sector and the communities themselves in bringing the message to each home that rape or any violence against women and children is a human rights issue.
Male adults, as well as those who prey on boys, must be reminded that no means no, regardless of the circumstances, and that violation of law carries severe punishments.
In this corner of the country, however, there is a dearth of reports in the media as to VAWC cases decided by the local courts that could have had a deterring effect on would-be perpetrators.
For several years now, the courts have declined to release copies or even sentencing details of decided VAWC cases, citing a 2017 Supreme Court administrative circular providing guidelines on the promulgation, publication and posting of decisions, resolutions and orders in cases of rape, child abuse, human trafficking and other sensitive crimes where confidentiality of identities of parties is required by laws.
A review of news reports on the circular indicates that what it prohibits is the release of the first copy of the decision, which is an unmodified original copy containing the names and personal information of the victims.
The guidelines signed by then Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio states that only the authenticated, redacted version of the decision, with the name of the victim replaced with fictional initials and the personal circumstances will be removed, shall be released to the parties and the media.
It would be unfair to suggest that the local courts are not keen to release the second, modified copy of decisions on sensitive VAWC cases because only the first, unmodified copy is made.
When the courts would finally provide the second copy to the local media upon request remains to be seen. Until then, the potential of a rape conviction to deter similar crimes would remain limited to the barangay where the incident occurred, an unfortunate development in this information age.