Sexually explicit text messages to Gretchen Fullido bared
Gretchen Fullido’s lawyer Marvin Aceron shared on Monday to a group of reporters the formal complaint they filed against the television reporter’s ABS-CBN colleagues before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office on Friday.
READ: Gretchen Fullido files sexual harassment, libel raps vs ABS-CBN co-workers
The complaint contained text messages supposedly sent to Fullido by former ABS-CBN news executive Cheryl Favila and news segment producer Maricar Asprec from 2015 to 2017.
The complaint stated that Fullido felt that she “needed to be close to them beyond the Boss-Colleague level” when “Tara Grets” first launched in April 2015.
It claimed that Favila and Asprec were in an “open relationship” and “Favila usually reserved her Thursday for a third-party.” Asprec allegedly asked Fullido to become Favila’s “Thursday Girl,” but she rejected this “request/offer.”
Text messages supposedly received by Fullido starting 2015 were cited in the complaint, including the following:
“I pitched for you to be the social media anchor for Election Marathon. But mas gusto ko pa rin ng strip-teaser Gretch yata.”
“Nothing really. I just want to say you were very sexy when you went up to me in the newsroom.”
“Parati naman akong game sa’yo. Ikaw lang ang maayaw. Hindi ko pa nakakalimutan ang rejection mo. #hugot ko”
“No. It’s more of a guy thing. Pwede pag lalapit ka, wag masyadong malapit? Unless tayong dalawa lang…”
According to the complaint, Fullido repeatedly rejected these advances since 2015. However, the complaint cited that “whenever she would reject Favila’s sexual advances, whenever Complainant did not give in to what Favila wanted — professionally and personally — her “stories and work would” suffer for it.”
Meanwhile, the lawyer of Favila and Asprec, Evalyn Ursua, said in a Facebook post on Saturday that ABS-CBN had dismissed the same complaint as baseless.
“This dismissal came about after Favila and Asprec proved that the text messages that Fullido used as evidence were distorted and maliciously taken out of their conversation threads,” Ursua said.
ABS-CBN dismissed the sexual harassment case against Favila on July 16, but it led to her termination for serious misconduct.
Charges against Asprec, on the other hand, were dismissed “there being no evidence showing her guilt for the alleged acts.”
The files sent by Fullido’s camp also included the basis of a libel complaint against news executives Ces Drilon, Venancio Borromeo, and reporter Marie Lozano.
They stated in the complaint that these ABS-CBN executives besmirched Fullido’s reputation by saying that the television reporter filed the administrative complaint “to leverage her status with ABS-CBN.”
Drilon recently issued a statement saying that it is “unthinkable” for her to do what Fullido alleges. ABS-CBN network also released a statement saying they respect Fullido’s right to bring her complaints to the court. /ee/ac
READ: Ces Drilon speaks up on Gretchen Fullido’s allegations of libel, victim-shaming
