A Bacolod resident was sentenced yesterday to 34 years and 8 months imprisonment for raping his two daughters aged 5 and 6 years old in 2004.

Bacolod Regional Trial Court Branch 43 Judge Philadelfa Pagapong-Agraviador found the father, whose name is being withheld to protect the identities of his victims, guilty beyond reasonable doubt of “rape through sexual assault” in both cases.

She sentenced him to suffer the penalty of 10 to 17 years and four months imprisonment for each case and to pay the offended parties P120,000 in civil indemnity, moral damages and exemplary damages.

The father was accused of forcibly inserting his finger in the private parts of his daughters against their will, while their mother, who is a vegetable vendor, was at work.

He told his daughters he would kill them and their mother if they told anyone what he did, the court was told.

The 6-year-old told the court that after what their father did to them, they could not sleep at night, and she wanted her father imprisoned.

It was the 5-year-old who first revealed that she and her sister had been molested by their father, the mother said.

The mother said she could not believe that her husband could do that to their daughters, but when she confronted him he left, and never returned to their conjugal abode.

What her daughters revealed to her was confirmed by medico legal officers, she added.

The judge said the two minors were victims of their own father who should have been the very first person to guard and protect their innocence, not destroy it.*CPG

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