Madonna speaks up about rape 38 years after incident

Grammy Award-winning pop star Madonna revealed more details about the sexual assault she didn't report almost 40 years ago due to fear and humiliation.

The 56-year-old singer elaborated on the incident on Howard Stern's show last March 11, where she said that during her first year in New York, she was attacked by a man who had offered to let her make a phone call at his apartment.

"He was a very friendly guy, I trusted everybody... I was in shock, I didn't know a soul. I was saying hi to people on the streets like a dork," the singer, 19 at the time of the assault, said.

Madonna first wrote about her experience in Harper's Bazaar in 2013, writing that the man held a knife to her back, dragged her up to the roof of a building, and there raped her.

The singer also summed up why rape is an underreported crime during the interview, a stop to promote her upcoming Rebel Heart album: "You've already been violated. It's just not worth it. It's too much humiliation," she said in a report on Huffington Post.

Rape may be under-reported in PHL

The Philippine National Police Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management only consolidated 7,409 reported rape incidents in the country in 2013, a number which Center for Women's Resources executive director Jojo Guan feels is smaller than the actual number of rapes committed.

Much like Madonna's explanation, Guan said most victims fear to report attacks due to intimidation or humiliation.

However, the number of reported cases has increased since 1999, and awareness campaigns and training programs aim to prepare both victims and respondents to better deal with the heinous crime. — Rie Takumi/BM, GMA News