The Court of Appeals has affirmed with modification the decision of a Pangasinan court which sentenced a grandpa to a maximum jail term of 40 years for raping his granddaughter and infecting her with a sexually transmitted disease in July 2006.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Ramon R. Garcia, the CA’s Special Second division ordered the accused-appellant Herminigildo B. Tabayan to pay the minor P175,000 in civil indemnity and damages aside from the prison term.

Tabayan appealed the ruling while denying the accusation but the CA said it found no reason why complainant in her young age would invent a tale of rape against her grandfather if it were not true.

“The Court is convinced that the prosecution has sufficiently proven appellant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of rape,” the CA ruled.

Associate Justices Jose C. Reyes Jr. and Fernanda Lampas Peralta concurred in the decision.

The then eight-year-old victim and her younger brother were left to the care of Tabayan by the girl’s parents who went out of town. Tabayan’s wife was likewise not around when the appellant raped the girl.

Despite orders to keep mum about the incident, the girl told an aunt that she was molested.

A medical examination confirmed the girl’s story and was even found positive for gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease.