What Constitutes as Rape? No Penetration Necessary, Supreme Court Rules
Not all justices are on board with the decision.
(SPOT.ph) The Supreme Court of the Philippines has ruled that penetration is not always necessary for consummated rape to occur following a stepfather’s conviction of raping his live-in partner’s 10-year-old daughter.
The stepfather, Efren Agao, was brought to court for repeatedly attempting to rape the minor while she was asleep in 2010 and 2012. In both incidents, his penis came in contact with the outer fold or the labia majora of her vagina, but he was unable to fully penetrate her because she fought back.
Keen on using more straightforward language on the current laws for rape, the Supreme Court has finally clarified in a landmark ruling the minimum contact threshold for rape to be considered consummated through sexual intercourse.
The Supreme Court said that the “mere introduction, however slight, into the cleft of the labia majora by a penis that is capable of penetration, regardless of whether such penile penetration is thereafter fully achieved, consummates the crime of rape.” Agao was sentenced with one count of statutory rape and one count of simple rape in 2022.
Before Agao’s case, there was a lot of legal ambiguities when it comes to rape—one that the Supreme Court recognizes and seeks to change with this latest ruling. It noted that the law on rape cases is “euphemistic but largely inaccurate” which have “only convoluted matters regarding the act of rape that should have been kept definitive.”
Section 2.2 of the Anti-Rape Law states that rape is “an act of sexual assault by inserting his penis into another person's mouth or anal orifice, or any instrument or object, into the genital or anal orifice of another person.” Without insertion, the crime is usually viewed with less severity than consummated rape and is therefore considered as attempted (or unsuccessful) rape.
“Fully aware of the detestable fact that the crime of rape is a violence of power and an ordeal of unspeakable trauma, the Court deems it fit that a clarification is necessary, crucial even, if it is to ensure that the detestable act of consummated rape by sexual intercourse or through penile penetration is not passed off as a mere attempt,” the Supreme Court said in a 40-page ruling.
Also read: Cheating on Your Wife Considered Psychological Violence by Supreme Court
J. Leonen: Supreme Court’s ruling objectifies women
Many might consider this a progressive step for victims everywhere, but not Senior Associate Justice Marvin Leonen. The lone dissenting justice argued that the decision to focus on which body parts have been touched only succeeds in the further objectification of women. With that, he is urging for the reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Rape is not punished in degrees as the trauma that comes from it is not experienced in degrees. The woman and girl victim views the violation as a whole. To tell her that her experience is that of frustrated or attempted rape would be to disregard her experience, her trauma, and the violation of her dignity which the law punishes,” Leonen said in his dissenting opinion.
“There is no such thing as attempted rape. All rape violates dignity. The finer points of the parts of the vagina touched by the penis is irrelevant.”
In addition, Leonen said the ruling “places the blame on the victim” since the perpetrator’s act will only be considered as attempted rape if the victim is successful in fighting back.
"No amount of anatomical discourse should ever erase the heinousness of this crime," Leonen said.
Also read: Christine Dacera's Death Shows Rape Culture Must Stop