The Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office has junked the libel charges filed by ABS-CBN entertainment reporter Gretchen Fullido against her ABS-CBN colleagues, journalist Ces Drilon, reporter Marie Lozano, and news executive Venancio Borromeo.
Prosecutors have decided to dismiss Fullido’s case saying the respective sworn statements of Drilon, Lozano and Borromeo about Fullido submitted to the ABS-CBN Ad Hoc Investigating Committee are “not defamatory and malicious”, reported ABS-CBN.
It can be recalled that Fullido’s libel charges against her ABS-CBN colleagues came after she filed a sexual harassment case against former TV Patrol supervising producer Cheryl Favila and segment producer Maricar Asprec when she “alleged that [the two] sent her text messages that were loaded with sexual innuendos, which amounted to requests for sexual favors.”
Meanwhile, Fullido also filed libel charges against Drilon, Borromeo, and Lozano, saying that they “besmirched her reputation when they stated that she filed a similar sexual harassment complaint against Favila and Asprec with ABS-CBN management to leverage her employment status with ABS-CBN”.
Drilon, who is a known broadcaster in the Philippines, was also accused of “victim shaming” by Fullido’s lawyer Marvin Aceron.
In her Complaint Affidavit, Fullido said that Drilon allegedly told her that she “deserved to be harassed” since she was “willing to wear a bikini with an inflatable pool with bubbles to shove up the ratings of TV Patrol, a leading daily news program.”
On the other hand, Fullido filed a complaint against Lozano who allegedly said that the former only filed complaints against Favila and Asprec because “she wanted to hold on to Star Patrol.”
“Before all this, rumors were spreading that the time has come for her to be replaced after celebrity patrollers started sitting in for Gretchen. The issue blew up after Kim Chiu whose stint was a trending topic said (in Mario Dumaual’s report) that she was ready to do Star Patrol anytime,” Lozano’s statement read.
Drilon has previously countered Fullido’s charges and said that being a former victim of sexual harassment herself, she will never commit such allegations and urged women to exercise their right to come out with truthful stories of harassment and abuse.
