Woman sentenced to reclusion perpetua for illegally detaining maid

A Quezon City court has sentenced to reclusion perpetua a woman found guilty of maltreating and illegally detaining her former housemaid.

In his July 14 order, Judge Ferdinand Baylon of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 77 convicted Annaliza Marzan for serious illegal detention of house help Bonita Baran.

Reclusion perpetua is a penalty imposed on people convicted of a crime under the RPC and carries with it an imprisonment of between 20 and 40 years.

After 30 years, convicts sentenced to reclusion perpetua are eligible for pardon.

Unlike a life sentence, which is handed down for crimes under special laws, reclusion perpetua carries with it accessory penalties including perpetual special disqualification.

Marzan's husband, Reynold, was found guilty as an accomplice to the crime of serious illegal detention and was sentenced to suffer imprisonment of eight years and one day of prison mayor medium, as minimum to 14 years and four months and one day of reclusion temporal medium, as maximum.

Baran on August 23, 2012 accused  the couple of "conspiring together, confederating and mutually helping each other, by means of forces, violence and intimidation...[to] then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously detain and lock" her from June 2009 to May 2012 inside a house in Las Villas Del Cielo along Visayas Avenue in Quezon City.

The court found the Marzans guilty of detaining Baran against her will on several occasions between 2009 and 2012. As a result of her employer's abuse, Baran also had gone blind. During her three-year employment, Baran was only allowed to return to her province once in May 2012.

The accused were ordered to pay Baran moral damages of P50,000 and exemplary damages of P50,000.

Baylon said it could not award damages to Baran for the loss of her sight, saying the proper forum for that would be the other court handling a separate serious physical injury case she lodged against her former employers.

The Senate in 2012 ordered the couple's  arrest for inflicting serious physical injuries on their former house help. — MDM, GMA News