BAGUIO (PHILIPPINES)
Philippine Daily Inquirer [Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines]
December 20, 2025
By Vincent Cabreza
The judge rejects the claim of innocence, upholding the 16-year-old girl’s testimony of being molested 3 times within the Bishop’s Residence
BAGUIO CITY — A Catholic priest, who had managed a popular church-run radio station in the summer capital, was convicted of raping one of the church’s teen scholars in 2023.
In promulgation proceedings on Thursday, Baguio City’s Regional Trial Court Judge Modesto Bahul of Branch 2-FC (Family Court) sentenced Fr. Mark Elis Batolne to life imprisonment for molesting the then 16-year-old girl on March 8, March 12 and March 28 in 2023.
The incident marked as a first major scandal to hit the Diocese of Baguio in recent years.
READ: Priest’s rape trial set
The girl, in her testimony, said Batolne had carried a knife when he first assaulted her on March 8 and March 12 at her room in the attic of the Bishop’s Residence, according to court records.
Coincidentally, March 8 was the wake of a late retired priest that was organized at the Bishop’s Residence, which is located close to the city’s iconic Baguio Cathedral and Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of the Atonement.
The girl finally left the Bishop’s Residence on April 3, 2023, the court said.
Courage found
On the first days of May, the girl found the strength to inform her school principal about her assault. On May 4, the principal and some teachers brought the girl to her home in a municipality in Benguet province to reveal what had happened to her parents.
The priest had continuously denied that he sexually abused the girl, who cooked and cleaned for the priests as part of her chores at the Bishop’s Residence after attending classes at daytime.
However, Batolne, who was also the diocesan finance officer, fled after learning that an arrest warrant has been issued against him. He had been a fugitive for about a year until he surrendered on June 25, 2024.
His detention since June 25, 2024 was counted as the start of his prison sentence, the judge ruled.
Batolne informed the court that he went into hiding because he was “afraid to be put in jail for a crime he did not commit.”
Defense debunked
However, the teenage girl identified Batolne as the man who had forced himself on her in three separate occasions.
The priest, in his defense, argued that he did not know the location of the girl’s room and had been staying with retired priests as their coordinator.
Batolne’s defense lawyer also drew attention to the girl’s infractions at the Bishop’s Residence to challenge her credibility, including instances when she let her uncle, a married 40-year-old man, sleep in her room as well as nights when she sneaked out with friends.
Batolne also presented witnesses who attested to the priest’s busy schedule as manager of the radio station and as chair of the board operating a church-run shopping mall.
But Babul in his ruling favored the girl’s account, concluding that “she bore no ill motive against the accused,” and had not asked for anything during dialogues with church officials, should she decide to drop the lawsuit.
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“That she left the Bishop’s house, abandoned her scholarship and refused talks of settlement indicated that she instituted (the lawsuit) to secure justice,” the court ruled.