MANILA – The lawyer of Vhong Navarro has refused to comment on the rape case filed against her client by Deniece Cornejo.
In an interview on ANC’s “Headstart” on Thursday, Atty. Alma Mallonga said commenting on the charge at this moment would only “give it some semblance of credibility.”
“I don’t even want to dignify questions about the alleged rape with an answer because it tends to give it some semblance of credibility. It did not happen. If they say that it happened, it’s their burden,” she said.
Mallonga said it’s up to the camp of Cornejo and Cedric Lee to prove to the courts using substantial evidence that a rape indeed happened on January 22 following the release of the CCTV footage of the condominium.
“Ipakita nila. I haven’t seen their complaints. I don’t know if they have a medico legal report. I don’t know what is the basis. But I’m telling you, for me, let’s not talk about the rape. They have a huge burden to overcome so let them be. It’s not our responsibility at this point to respond to these charges. To me, it’s clear that it does not even have any leg to stand on,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mallonga also reacted to the statement of Atty. Howard Calleja, Cornejo and Lee’s legal counsel, saying the CCTV footage does not tell the whole story because it did not show what happened inside the unit.
“Logic and human experience plays as much a role as technicalities, in fact more, in the appreciation of any case. Any grade school student or high school student would understand what is believable or what is not believable. The fact that there is no camera inside does not matter. There are other witnesses that are coming out,” she said.
