MANILA – One of the suspects tagged in the controversial death of flight attendant Christine Angelica Dacera insisted she was not raped and there were no signs of violence on her body.
Gregorio de Guzman, one of those present at the New Year’s Eve party at a hotel in Makati City, said he found the possible charges against him and co-accused “absurd,” adding they even tried to save Dacera.
“What made them think that we could ever be capable of doing this?” De Guzman said in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source. “She was the only girl in the group, that’s why she was like the princess, everyone looked out for her.”
“To my knowledge, no. I don’t think she was raped,” he added. “The first thing I would tend to notice was there any sense of violence or signs of violence when you find her, and there was none.”
“So I was by her knees and legs, and I didn’t even notice any bruises. The thing is, the bruises could have come from maybe us lifting her out of the bathtub or us trying to put her in the wheelchair,” he further said.
De Guzman, son of singer Claire Dela Fuente, also denied the allegations of Dacera’s camp that he did not cooperate with the authorities.
“After four hours, my attorney just felt bad for me, so he asked the police if I could already head home, because they didn’t even ask for a statement,” De Guzman said. “I gave them my information. I’m not hiding.”
“Let’s do due process of law and the investigation. We have been participating willingly,” he added. “Even though I just met her (Dacera), I care, because she’s still a human being, she doesn’t deserve what happened to her.”
“We were there for her till the very end,” De Guzman said. “And also, her friends deserve better than this. They already lost a friend, they already went through the trauma of trying to take care of her limp body, and now they’re in jail.”
Dacera, 23, was found unconscious in a bathtub after celebrating the New Year with friends. Autopsy report revealed that Dacera died due to ruptured aortic aneurysm.
But Dacera’s camp said it would also conduct another autopsy, decribing the initial findings as incomplete./PN
