By Charlie Señase, Edwin Fernandez
Inquirer Mindanao
Police authorities confirmed on Tuesday the arrest of at least six suspects in Saturday night’s gang-rape of a 21-year-old nurse in South Upi, Maguindanao.
Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac, Maguindanao police director, said police have been preparing formal charges against the six suspects.
The suspects – Michael Candelario, Jeffrey Fernandez, Glen Saldua, Roscon Sanglap, Darwin Escalona and Eugene Biscarra, all residents of Barangay (village) Timanan – belong to prominent families in the town.
South Upi Councilor Warlito Bansigan told reporters on Tuesday that the suspects, who have been in prison, did not resist arrest.
But all of them denied taking part of the rape, he said.
The victim works under the government’s Nurses Assistance for Rural Services (Nars) program.
Bansigan said that based on the investigation conducted by the local police, the victim and some of her co-nurses had a night’s out at a local videoke house, where they drank alcohol.
The six suspects joined them there.
Bansigan said it was about 10 p.m., Saturday, when the group decided to part ways, with the victim heading for her house, just a few meters from her workplace.
He said that when the victim's colleagues learned she had not returned home, they alerted the police.
“They found her in a grassy area at the back of the town hospital and she was unconscious,†Bansigan said.
When the victim regained consciousness, she told authorities she had been raped.
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