Demons among angels

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    THE LONG arm of the law has finally grabbed a rape suspect from the sands of Saudi Arabia where he sought refuge more than a year ago.

    Former Holy Angel University professor Arnel Atienza Ocampo, came home Monday afternoon in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation and was immediately whisked to the agency’s detention center.

    Ocampo was a cause celebre in the academic community here after a 16-year-old student slapped him with 32 counts of rape. Our column on the case, published here and in our blog in February 2009 generated the highest number of comments ever. Here’s a reprint for a refresher on the case.
     

    “HE FOLLOWS a pattern of abuse against his female students who are in the age of minority. He is a ‘serial offender’ who is very methodical and deliberate. First he uses his position as teacher, bestowed with moral ascendancy among (sic) students, to get close to his prey. Then he conditions the minds of his potential victims, as he slowly tears apart their moral defenses. And finally thru (sic) his influence and manipulation, he slowly and relentlessly seduces them to experiment (sic) his sexual sins, while he deflects our attention toward the physical pleasures rather than the shamefulness of the act.”

    Thus, “Rose” portrayed the predator that fed on her young womanhood in a sworn statement she submitted to the Department of Justice to formalize her complaint for 32 counts of rape and 32 counts of qualified seduction against one Arnel Atienza Ocampo, identified as an English professor at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City.

    Enrolled from 2006 to 2008 at the HAU, “Rose” said Ocampo first raped her in October 2006 when she was about to turn 17.

    How the professor managed to continue abusing the student for so long, “Rose” had this to say, again in her sworn affidavit: “Ocampo would take videos to blackmail and prevent me from revealing the abuses to my parents. He also mentioned that if a case is filed against him, he will not hesitate to spread the sex videos to the public…He threatened to recopy and spread the sex videos if I resisted his sexual advances. Ocampo got me into deeper trouble being so much in control of me. He would force me to execute different kinds of sexual performances on and with him. His perversion is so evident…”

    The narrative readily reminds one of those various “sex scandal” videos purportedly shot on coeds from different campuses all over the country, ranging from Silliman University in Dumaguete to Angeles University Foundation here.

    The purported video of “Rose” though is clearly cut from the pattern of that case in a Southern Tagalog school where a professor also used one to blackmail a married student into submission to his carnal desires. I think it was in Mike Enriquez’s “Imbestigador” over GMA-7 that I saw this.

    Anyways, how such predators are able to penetrate and make their lairs in institutions of learning – in the case at hand, how a demon was able to mingle among angels – bespeak of the laxity, if not indifference of college administrations in screening their faculty members.

    In her sworn affidavit, “Rose” claimed that in 1997 a fourth year high school student of Magalang Institute filed a sexual harassment complaint against Ocampo who was teaching there at that time. That prompted the school to dismiss Ocampo.

    How the HAU administration missed on that incident when it took Ocampo in can well be considered as a lapse in judgment that caused untold harm on an innocent life.

    The parents of “Rose” filed with the HAU administration a complaint against Ocampo. So he was suspended for all of three months last November 2008. And has since returned to teaching.

    And that was it?

    A school has as much moral authority – and therefore also the concomitant responsibility – as parents in the rearing of a child. By allowing demons to roam free and prey on angels within its hallowed premises, the school is clearly shirking that responsibility.

    Already, we have been receiving information feeds from various sources that Ocampo, allegedly, is not all alone in the preying racket. One other professor – publicly known as saintly with his righteousness rubbed off the font of righteousness and good governance in this corner of the land – is actually an even worse predator.

    So this Lothario has been punished by the school when he was deprived of a deanship. So that’s it?

    A misnomer is the Holy Angel University indeed, if demons make a sanctuary of it.

    Time for the archangel’s flaming sword to fall on Lucifer’s ilk.


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