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AGO seeks to protect abuse victim’s privacy
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Posted on Nov 10 1999
The Attorney General’s Office seeks to protect a child-abuse victim’s right to privacy by asking the Superior Court to deny a defendant’s request for disclosure of confidential records pertaining to the girl and her father.
Assistant Atty. General James Benedetto last week filed a pleading opposing the request of Irvin Dela Cruz Songao, who was charged with child abuse for allegedly having sex with a 13-year old girl.
The pleading did not specify the “confidential records” that Songao asked to be disclosed at the court.
Songao has expressed fear that “the violent family dynamic . . . could cause the complaining witness to falsify her testimony.”
Benedetto said Songao could not justify his request for disclosure of the victim’s and his family’s records, and that he was only attempting to get a material that can be used to attack the credibility of the victim’s testimony at the trial.
“It would be fundamentally unfair to give the defendant a strategic right to fish for damaging information in the most private and vulnerable areas of a victim’s life at the cost of infringing on the equally important rights of the victim,” Benedetto said.
“Compelling such disclosures is tantamount to sanctioning the harassment of victims and their families and would render the constitutional provision meaningless,” he added. (Mar-Vic Cagurangan)
