Maggie Dela Riva - The Ordeal

The Ordeal

Maggie was a rising young ABS-CBN television star in 1967, when she was abducted, raped and tortured by a notorious gang of young men at the Swanky Hotel in Pasay City. At 4:30 a.m. on 26 June 1967, accused Jaime Jose Y Gomez, Basilio Pineda, Jr., Eduardo Aquino Y Payumo, and Rogelio Cañal Y Sevilla, principals, with accomplices Wong Lay Pueng, Silverio Guanzon Y Romero and Jessie Guion Y Envoltario, having conspired together, forcibly abducted Maggie, 25, and brought her to the Swanky Hotel in Pasay City. The four accused, by means of force and intimidation, and with the use of a deadly weapon, raped her.

Maggie was homeward bound (No. 48, 12th Street, New Manila, Quezon City) from the ABS-CBN Studio on Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City, driving her bantam car with her maid Helen Calderon, when the 4 accused, using a Pontiac 2-door convertible car, waylaid her. Inside the 2nd floor room of the Swanky Hotel, dela Riva was made to sit on a bed, with Pineda and Aquino standing in front of her, and Jose and Cañal sitting beside her. Pineda said, "Magburlesque ka para sa amin!" ("Dance nude before us!") Completely naked before the 4 men, who were kneeling in front of her, the ordeal lasted for 10 minutes. Maggie was asked thrice to turn around. Jose entered the room and undressed himself. He pushed her backward and pinned her down on the bed. Twice, when she went into a state of shock, her attackers poured water on her face and slapped her to revive her. After the gang finished the rape, at 6 a.m. they put her in a taxi, in front of the Free Press Building near Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and Channel 5.

At home, her mother, her brother-in-law Ben Suba, and several PC officers, policemen and reporters, were present, and she said: "Mommy, Mommy, I have been raped. All four of them raped me."

On June 29, 1967, dela Riva, with her lawyer, Atty. Regina O. Benitez, filed a complaint with the Quezon City Police Department Headquarters, and submitted to an internal medical examination by Dr. Ernesto Brion, NBI Chief Medico-Legal Officer.