The respondents in the death of Christine Dacera believe that the 23-year-old flight attendant would have told them if she was raped.
“If she was raped, she would have let us know what happened to her,” Valentine Rosales, one of the respondents, said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel on Friday.
“Sasabihin niya po ‘yun (She would have told us),” said Clark Rapinan, another respondent in the case.
Rosales recalled that when they took Dacera to their room on the morning of New Year’s Day, she was still conscious, but Christine kept on vomiting.
“The problem is she’s very heavily breathing like she’s really having difficulty in breathing, and she kept on vomiting even though there were no fluids coming out of her body,” he said.
Rommel Galido, Dacera’s friend and also one of the respondents in the case, said that Christine would have informed him if something wrong happened to her.
“Knowing Christine as my closest friend, halos lahat ng ginagawa niya sinasabi niya sa akin, for sure kung meron mang ginawa sa kanya sasabihin niya sa akin (where almost everything she does she tells me, for sure if anything was done to her, she will tell me),” Galido said.
The Dacera family and the Philippine National Police have both insisted that Christine was raped and killed.
However, an initial medico-legal examination report reportedly concluded that the cause of Christine's death was ruptured aortic aneurysm.
The Makati City Prosecutor’s Office has since referred the case for further investigation, and ordered the release of three suspects in the death of Dacera.