A Quezon City court slapped a construction worker with life imprisonment after he dragged and raped a drunken teenager who was resting by a road near his workplace in Commonwealth Ave. four years ago.

Judge Alexander Balut of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 76 said that the court found no reason for victim Jaquilyn Socorro to concoct a story pinning accused Gilbert Amargo to the crime.

The judge noted that Socorro’s determination to call the police and seek justice lends to the credibility of her claim of rape against the accused.

Amargo told the court that Socorro submitted herself willingly but the court did not find any reason for the victim to file the complaint and subject herself to the discomfort of a medical examination, embarrassment and humiliation of a trial.

The court rejected Amargo’s defense that he and Socorro had consensual sex.

Amargo argued that he did not commit rape since the construction barrack was well lit where one can easily take a peek adding that his co-workers were present although asleep in the area.

The accused added that if the victim resisted a commotion would have occurred and awakened his co-workers.

Balut said that the accused miscalculated and erred in his judgment thinking that the victim was easy and would not complain.

“Rape can be committed even in places where people congregate, in parks, along roadside, within school premises, inside a house where there are other occupants and even in the same room where other members of the family are also sleeping. Lust is no respecter of time and place,’’ Balut noted in Supreme Court decision People vs. Cura case.

In her testimony, Socorro who was 18 years old then said that she went to a friend’s house in Tandang Sora after her January 5, 2008 party at her residence at 916 Pook Ricarte UP Diliman Campus.

On her way to her friend’s house she felt dizzy and rested in front of Metrobank along Commonwealth Ave. near the Iglesia ni Cristo compound when the accused pulled and dragged her to the construction site.

She said that the accused put her down over a plywood, removed her shorts and underwear pulled down his shorts and raped her.

The accused pressed his body as she tried her best to resist to no avail.