Rama courts controversy again

Annabelle Rama-Gutierrez. INQUIRER file photo

Talent manager Annabelle Rama-Gutierrez is facing child abuse raps for allegedly making two of her minor talents work more than 40 hours a week, sometimes interfering with their school schedule.

The four-page complaint was filed on Friday before the Quezon City prosecutors’ office by Nadine Montenegro Pla, better known in show biz as Nadia Montenegro, on behalf of her two daughters aged 15 and 17.

The mother described Rama as a family friend and manager who signed a five-year contract for Pla’s two children to appear on TV.

Republic Act No. 7610 or the Anti-Child Abuse Act prescribes that a child cannot work for more than 40 hours a week, while a memorandum of the Department of Labor and Employment prescribes that an employer cannot make a child work during school hours.

Pla also lodged a complaint for oral defamation against Rama for allegedly circulating rumors about her two daughters – one had supposedly contracted a sexually transmitted disease, while the other had allegedly been raped.

“As manager, Rama failed to protect the interests of my children by making them work even during school hours to the detriment of their grades and giving them the impression that the same was required by the network and that they either ‘take it or leave it,’” the affidavit read.

Pla also alleged that the talent manager made her two daughters wear “mature and sexually suggestive clothes” and attend social events that exposed her kids “to circumstances that were prejudicial to their morals.”

In a separate affidavit, the two daughters recalled times when they were made to shoot from 6 a.m. to 4 a.m. the following day for a TV5 show.

The “verbal and emotional” abuse soon reached a point in which Pla decided to end her daughters’ contract with Rama.