Saturday, June 23, 2007 Ex-prosecutor questions dismissal of complaint
A LAWYER is contesting the prosecution office’s dismissal of a sexual harassment complaint she filed against her boss at the National Transmission Corp. (Transco), saying the matter should have been left to the Regional Trial Court to decide.
Lawyer Perla Centino, who was a government prosecutor herself, stressed that she has indeed been wronged.
She assailed the dismissal of the complaint at the hands of another female prosecutor, Assistant City Prosecutor Daphne Andal-Degoma.
“For a charge of sexual harassment to hold, evidence of intent to commit the offense is not necessary. What is required is the act itself, which must be sexual in nature, and its effects on the victim,” Centino said in her petition for review to Regional State Prosecutor Antonio Arellano.
“The conclusion of the investigating prosecutor is without any basis in law,” she argued in her pleading dated June 20, 2007.
The lawyer filed the original sexual harassment complaint last Jan. 23, 2007 with the help of the Legal Alternatives for Women (Law) Inc.
It centered on a November 2005 mobile phone message she allegedly got from her Manila-based boss, Atty. Noel Z. de Leon, during one of his trips to Cebu City that year.
The message was allegedly just one of the many she received from him.
In his counter-affidavit submitted March 5, 2007, de Leon denied the charge and said it was filed only after Centino “failed to get promoted to the position of Corporate Attorney III.”
He said the text message sent to Centino was actually intended for his wife and was only sent to the complainant by accident.
He said he tried to call Centino immediately afterwards but she would not pick up.
Centino has also complained about verbal harassment.
Sexual banter
She cited as example an October 2005 incident at a Legaspi City karaoke bar where de Leon supposedly showed his propensity to openly talk about sex.
Because of the incident, she distanced herself from her superior. According to her, this resulted in dire consequences because in May 2006, someone else was given the higher position within the organization that she applied for.
The promotion was made less than two weeks before she filed her complaint.
On his alleged propensity to openly talk about sex, de Leon said in his affidavit that the subject came up in light moments and in the company of other people whom he considered friends.
“If complainant was offended by any comment or view expressed by me or by anyone of the many people who were there at that time, it was absolutely unintended,” he said. (KNR)
