SUGAR Mercado, a former member of an all-female dance group Sex Bomb, on Friday asked the Supreme Court’s intervention purportedly to stop what she described as harassment cases filed by her estranged husband.
In a petition, Mercado assisted by the Gabriella Women’s Party sought SC’s intervention against the cases lodged by her husband Kristoffer Jay Go, which arose from a custody case over their two children.
Mercado lamented the cases, which include child abuse, libel and slight physical injury, are forms of strategic lawsuit against public participation intended to intimidate victims of abuse from seeking justice, especially those who have no access to the courts.
“Declaring vexatious and harassment cases as SLAPPs and prohibiting the exercise of the same is well within the power of the Honorable Court to promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights,” the petition stressed.
Mercado pleaded the high court to issue a temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction to prevent the respondents from conducting further hearings and proceedings in the cases.
Named respondents to the petition were Mercado’s husband, Kenneth Jay Go, Casey Lim Jimenez, Christina Palileo, Ruel Balino, the four Quezon City courts handling the cases, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, and Quezon City Chief Prosecutor Donald Lee.
For its part, Gabriela pointed out that the filing of harassment cases against Violence Against Women and Children victims “debases the very essence” of Republic Act 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act.
“Imagine the ordeal that every VAWC victim currently suffers as abusers abuse the legal system to harass and silence them. With Sugar’s case, we hope that SC will consider SLAPP as a form of VAWC itself,” said Gabriela Rep. Emmi De Jesus in a statement.
“We ask the SC to draw the line on this case to grant protection to harassed and abused women and to stop the abuse in the form of filing of SLAPP cases against VAWC victims,” the Gabriela lawmaker said.