AN EXECUTIVE of a state-run news agency in Central Mindanao is accused of sexual harassment before the Office of the Ombudsman by a student intern.
The government news executive was charged with acts of lasciviousness, sexual harassment, and grave misconduct by the 19-year-old intern at the Mindanao Cross, a community paper based in that city. In an affidavit of complaint dated June 23, the complainant, a 19-year-old student who was having her internship stated that she had befriended the respondent through Facebook last December.
Their exchange of messages continued in FB messenger, which, according to the complainant was done “with no malice of any kind.”
The complainant further narrated that since then, she and the respondent had several exchange of messages through Facebook mostly about topics on media and some advices about her on-the-job training.
During her internship, the complainant said that she met the respondent in person for the first time at a press conference on January 26 and even had casual conversations with him.
Their second encounter happened during a speaking engagement between the President-elect Rodrigo Duterte and the MILF Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar in Camp Darapanan, according to the complaint-affidavit.
Another meeting with the respondent also took place after that but according to the complainant they only had friendly conversations.
“(D)uring the foregoing events and exchange of messages in FB, I fully trusted the man and had no air of malice in his invitations,” the complainant stated.
It was on May 31 when the respondent invited him to go to the Grand Mosque in Kalangan, Cotabato City for his article for the incoming Ramadhan and when they arrived in the area, the respondent allegedly patted her butt but she dismissed the act as just an accident.
The respondent allegedly invited him for lunch at his house so that the complainant may be able to see his residence and she agreed to do so, still not seeing any malice in it.
After several conversations with the respondent inside his house, the accused allegedly hugged her and touch her breast many times and the complainant resisted but fear took over her especially that the respondent allegedly showed her his gun prior to the event.
“I stayed silent, nervous, and feared for my life,” the complainant stated in the affidavit.
The respondent also allegedly did the act again when they were inside his car while they were on their way to a local hardware store in the area.
When the respondent asked her if she wanted to go home, the complainant immediately answered with a yes and left. After the incident, the complainant said that she had been crying and had sleepless nights until it prompted her later to divulge what happened to her mother.
The complainant said that they wanted to file criminal complaints against the respondent but hesitated since being a media personality, the respondent has many connections in the police, military, and the Regional Trial Courts in Mindanao.
“I believed that he took advantage of my youth and sexually harassed me thinking that I was gullible. That I realized that he already had premeditated plan to have me submit to his sexual desires which I didn’t,” the complainant alleged. (RCP)