VICENTE “Junie” Dejoras Jr. is the former Cebu South Bus Terminal administrator, who was relieved from his post in August of 2014 after he was accused of punching a dispatcher.
He and his family live right across my grandmother’s house on Urgello St. in Barangay Sambag 1, and have been neighbors since the 1950s.
We don’t interact as much as we used to but our families have forged a bond that could only result from more than six decades of proximity.
So if you’re wondering why I went out on a limb to defend his integrity when he was charged with acts of lasciviousness by a businesswoman at the terminal some years back, this is why.
First of all, we all scoffed at the accusations hurled against him because we were all incredulous that he’d be capable of committing such lewd acts.
According to the complainant, Junie kissed her neck and hugged her tight against her will when she went to his office on the night of Aug. 8, 2013.
What she didn’t know was that before she filed the case, Junie had confided in me that the same businesswoman had been harassing him at work.
He said she made it a habit to drop by his office to flirt with him. On one occasion, she even told him she wanted to kiss him.
Now that flirting-with-him and wanting-to-kiss-him part we all believed. After all, Junie is not called “‘Soy-Soy,” or “Tisoy,” for nothing. Because, if he really wanted to stray from his marriage, he would have had the pick of somebody much younger and, well, more appealing.
I remember laughing when he admitted that he wouldn’t touch her in a million years.
Junie was so confident that he would be absolved of the ridiculous accusation that he didn’t bother to file a counter-affidavit, which was why his name was dragged into the controversy and his family was subjected to public humiliation.
When I went to my grandmother’s house earlier this week, I was told that Junie had left something for me.
It was a copy of the court decision dismissing the case against him.
“...the evidence presented utterly fails to overcome the presumption of innocence which the accused enjoys. The failure of the prosecution to prove the elements of the offense beyond reasonable doubt must perforce result in accused’s exoneration from criminal liability,” said Municipal Trial Court in Cities Branch 7 Judge Francisco Seville Jr.
To some, this may all seem gobbledegook, but I guess lawyers and judges didn’t go to law school for four years and review for six months so they can just say that the case against Junie was dismissed for lack of evidence.