THERE are several reasons to reflect on in the recent filing of criminal charges by ABS-CBN broadcaster Gretchen Fullido against a former network producer and four newsroom colleagues, citing sexual harassment, libel, and victim-shaming.
In her complaint filed at the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office on Oct. 5, Fullido presented the text messages that she received from former ABS-CBN News executive Cheryl Favila and ABS-CBN News segment producer Maricar Asprec, who, according to Fullido, demanded sexual favors from her.
After rejecting Favila and Asprec, Fullido claims that the two made work conditions difficult for her at the “TV Patrol” program. She had earlier filed administrative complaints against Favila and Asprec. The ABS-CBN management dismissed the sexual harassment case, but found Favila guilty of gross misconduct, which led to her dismissal from work.
Fullido also filed libel complaints against ABS-CBN news executives Cecilia Drilon and Venancio Borromeo and reporter Marie Luzano for alleging that she filed the administrative complaints to “leverage her employment status at the network,” Rappler.com reported on Oct. 5.
While the legal system processes the criminal case filed by Fullido, it is important for public discourse to focus on sexual harassment, which manifests a system of power inequalities and abuse that many victims still fear exposing.
According to Republic Act (RA) 7877, also known as the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995, sexual harassment involves parties, one of whom exerts power, authority or moral ascendancy over the persons being harassed.
Sexual harassment takes place in the workplace. The third aspect of sexual harassment emphasizes a demand for sexual favors, with work privileges or benefits offered in exchange.
Sexual harassment escalates if a victim resists the sexual importuning of a boss, workplace superior or teacher, who makes the work environment hostile to retaliate or pressure the victim to capitulate or remain silent.
Many victims end up resigning without exposing the harassment because public opinion stereotypes the victim as the “guilty” party for inviting the sexual advances or taking advantage of the situation.
“Victim-shaming” is among the practices adding to the perniciousness of sexual harassment, a social problem that demonstrates the convergence of gender and class in the oppressions of power. Along with assault and misogyny, sexual harassment is the focus of advocacies associated with the fourth wave of feminism, spanning 2008 up to the present.
Despite signs of increasing empowerment and militance of women against many forms of violence, sexual harassment retains its power to exploit many victims at their most vulnerable.
The culture privileges those in positions of power who do not just have the resources but also the access to manipulate public opinion to exonerate them from social judgment.
Victims also fear the negative repercussions on their employment, including chances of finding work again within the same industry.
Under RA 7877, charges of sexual harassment do not even require actual physical contact to take place; the mere demand of sexual favor by a workplace superior is sufficient.
Sexual harassment occurs regardless of one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression (SOGIE), as can be gleaned in the Fullido case, which involves parties of different SOGIE.
Feminist theorist Sara Ahmed was copyediting her seminal work, “Living a feminist life,” when she resigned from the prestigious institution Goldsmiths as a sign of protest after three years of working with colleagues “to challenge how sexual harassment has become normalized in academic culture.”
In her work, she pointed out that women and men must meet the challenge of making feminism, or whatever name it is called, “work in the places we live, the places we work.”