MANILA, Philippines—The lawyer of Dr. Hayden Kho asked on Friday the Department of Justice to issue a gag order barring the camp of actress Katrina Halili from making statements that would put the cosmetic surgeon who figured in the sex video scandal in a bad light.
The DOJ declined the request.
Lawyer Lorna Kapunan asked the DOJ panel chaired by State Prosecutor Emilie Fe De los Santos to prevent Halili and her camp from issuing “incendiary public statements” against Kho.
This was the first time Halili and Kho faced each other since the emotionally-charged Senate inquiry on the sex video scandal last month.
During the Senate probe, Kho was doused with water by a member of the gallery—ex-police officer Abner Afuang.
No such incident was forthcoming at the DOJ’s preliminary investigation yesterday but Halili, even in silence managed to hog the attention as she continuously glared at Kho throughout the hearing.
Assisted by counsel, Halili and Kho affirmed their complaint-affidavit and counter-affidavit, respectively.
Belo came late
Dr. Vicki Belo, Kho’s former girl friend, who has been linked to the spread of the videos in public, was absent at the preliminary investigation but showed up after the proceedings to submit her own counter-affidavit.
The preliminary investigation was meant to find whether there was probable cause to charge Kho with violation of the Anti-Violence against Women and Children Act
“Can we have a ruling that out of respect for [this panel] that no incendiary public statement be made,” said Kapunan during the proceedings.
Mum on sex
“The press is not a government agency, neither is it a court… There has been so much public uproar on what is supposed to be a private affair,” she added.
Lawyer Raymund Palad, counsel for Halili, said the public statements they made were on the other cases they had filed against Kho, such as the malpractice suit against the Belo Medical Group.
“We are not saying anything on the sex video,” Palad said.
No control
State Prosecutor De los Santos, however, turned down Kapunan’s request for a gag order, saying that the DOJ panel conducting the preliminary investigation had no control over what the private parties would say.
Nevertheless, she cautioned both parties on issuing public statements of fact that weren’t in their affidavits.
“It can affect the case,” De los Santos said.
Other respondents Eric Johnston Chua, Mark Herbert Rosario and Princess Velasco failed to show up but were represented during the proceedings by their lawyers.
Violation against women
Halili filed a case against Kho for violation of the Anti-Violence against Women and Children Act in connection with the video clips taken while they were having sex. The videos have since been uploaded on the Internet for the public to see.
Chua, in a statement submitted to the National Bureau of Investigation, and in a television interview, said Belo had asked him and Rosario to take Kho’s computer from the latter’s condominium unit.
Chua said he was told to copy the sex videos on a disc and to destroy the files from the hard disc afterwards. He said only Belo had a copy of the disc.
Belo has since denied insinuations that she was the source of the sex videos that have been posted on Internet porn sites and sold in the streets as DVDs.
Delay in NBI probe
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has encountered a delay in its probe to unmask the person responsible for uploading the Kho-Halili sex video on the web.
While the NBI has identified the US-based website where the scandalous video was first uploaded, the agency’s request for the system log which could identify the culprit would have to be facilitated through a US court, said Palmer Mallari, head agent of the Anti-Fraud and Computer Crimes Division (AFCCD).
The system log—like a fingerprint—will reflect the Internet protocol address and the domain registration that will identify the person responsible for the initial upload, Mallari said.
“It would take months if we go through this process. We have other cases that need to be investigated. We cannot set them aside,” Mallari said, adding that such a process would take from one to three months, depending on the US court that would grant the request.
He said they had sent the request to the US-based website two weeks ago and only recently received their response.
System log
“We can secure the order from a US court because we have evidence for probable cause. But the delay is a setback to resolving the case,” Mallari said.
The NBI, he said, was waiting for the justice department to come up with an alternative legal measure to obtain the system log.
Mallari also said they issued a subpoena to a certain Princess Velasco, who was present when the videos in Kho’s laptop computer were discovered.
According to a sworn statement of businessman Chua, when he opened Kho’s laptop computer, celebrity cosmetic surgeon Dr. Belo, Dr. Rosario and Velasco were with him in the room.
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