Kris: I’ll fight to the finish!

A lot of people have been asking me – saying, "Since you’re close to Kris" – if it’s true that Kris Aquino might withdraw the P80-million libel case she has filed against GMA PRO Tet Defensor and GMA bigwigs.

I’d like to think that I’m "close to Kris" but I don’t – never! – speak for her especially on such a sensitive issue as a court case. So first thing I did yesterday morning was ring up Kris to find out.

Is it true that you’re, uh, backing out?

"From the Bench show (staged last night before an SRO audience at the Big Dome) like what you wrote last Monday?" Kris asked with a bedroom voice.

No, I corrected her. From the court battle against the GMA guys.

"Of course, not!" she exclaimed, suddenly wide awake (she turned in very late, at dawn, after shooting a kissing scene with Christian Vasquez for the ABS-CBN soap Hiram). "I will fight to the finish!"

Why am I asking, she wanted to know.

Because, I told her, many people are asking if she’s withdrawing the libel case prompted by a column feed Tet sent out to tabloid columnists, saying "...sa dami ng lalaking inaamin niyang naging konektado sa kanya, masama man, minsan maiisip mo, sa pinaggagawa niya deserve naman niyang magka-STD, eh."

It was Abante columnist Jojo Gabinete who kind of "blew the whistle" on poor Tet whose PR request – "Kapatid, paki lang ng boss ko. Sana masingit sa mga column nyo. Salamat!" – is now one of the "immortal" showbiz quotables.

Somebody close to Kris told Funfare that Kris was "very hurt" and "very offended" by that column feed, obviously concocted as part of the never-ending network war between ABS-CBN (The Kapamilya station) and GMA (The Kapuso station) to "discredit" Kris’ image as host of ABS-CBN’s Good Morning, Kris, which is pitted against the GMA show on the same timeslot, SIS, hosted by the De Belen sisters Janice and Gelli (now with Carmina Villarroel).

"She’ll be like her mom (former President Cory Aquino) this time," said that somebody close to Kris. "Unyielding, unflinching, uncompromising."

It must be recalled that Tita Cory filed a libel suit against – Ouch!!! – The STAR because she didn’t like the story that she "hid under the bed" during one of the coup attempts that rocked her administration.

"The case is now in court," Kris told Funfare, "so I won’t say anything more. Bahala na ang korte mag-decide."

For the sake of non-tabloid readers, I’m reprinting in full the controversial column feed:

Ano ang bago sa Good Morning Kris? Wala. Kung ano ang ginagawa nila noon, yun pa rin hanggang ngayon. Parang absent lang si Korina.

Noon nga lang may pretensions pa for credibility. Ngayon pure commercialism. Maski ang kakirihan ni Kris sa pa-tweetums na mga tanong ay hindi nakakakilig kundi nakakapangilabot. Parang di ba bagay kay Kris to act like a blushing kolehiyala after niyang ipinangalandakan na nagkaroon siya ng STD na allegedly galing sa jowa niyang married to another person.

Tuwing hahagikhik si Kris to a suggestive question ni Boy, ang nagpa-flash sa utak ng tao ay hindi sweet girl kundi "may STD ‘to, may STD ‘to, may STD ‘to." Sa dami ng lalaking inaamin niyang naging konektado sa kanya, masama man, minsan maiisip mo, sa pinaggagawa niya deserve naman niyang magka-STD eh.

True, as many Funfare readers have pointed out, Kris had had a relationship with married men (Phillip Salvador and Joey Marquez, one at a time, of course!) and she had had STD and Kris herself admitted it on national television. No question about it. What, I think, made that column feed damaging was the last sentence (which I first quoted earlier).

Check your libel law and it says that truth is not an excuse for libel.

As they often say, putting things to the extreme, "Even a prostitute deserves some amount of respect – and a fair trial."

Last week, when she filed her counter-affidavit, Tet said that, 1) it was her bosses, naming Butch Raquel and Wilma Galvante, who gave her that and other column feeds, 2) she signed an affidavit owning full responsibility for the whole mess because she was "confused" at that time (she retracted that affidavit), and 3) she was under probation and was just doing as she was told by her bosses.

Raquel said that he did give Tet that column feed, making an "ikaw na ang bahala" note on the margin. "I gave it to her on June 2," said Raquel in his statement, "why did she send it (to the columnists) on June 16 kung utos ng boss niya?" For her part, Galvante said that she couldn’t have known about it because she was abroad from May 19 to middle of June.

Asked by Boy Abunda in an interview on the ABS-CBN EK Channel if it was the policy of GMA to "muckrake" (word to that effect) the character of the rival station’s hosts and send out "negative" press releases and column feeds, Tet showed portions of her counter-affidavit included similar column feeds hostile to ABS-CBN.

That said, we’ll just have to wait how this aspect of the network war will end. But as I’ve been saying, the network war has gone much too far now that one side, if proven true, has resorted to below-the-belt tactics and character-assassination.

Meanwhile, Kris is keeping her mouth shut. Knowing how talkative and assertive she is, it must be quite a herculean task for her.

"My Mom is with me in this battle," Kris said.

If ever she wins, Kris said she won’t get a single cent of the P80 million she’s asking for. (According to Tet, a single mom, her child asked her, "Mommy, saan mo kukunin ang P80 million na pambayad kay Kris Aquino?").

Kris plans to donate the amount to her favorite charities, including Manay Gina de Venecia’s Haven (for battered women), Bahay Kalinga (Tita Cory’s favorite charity) and Karen Davila’s Worldvision (which sends the poorest of the poor children to school and to which Kris has already donated P50,000 from her own pocket).

So, tuloy ang laban!

"I’ll see this case through," insisted Kris. "I’ll pursue it to the end."

There. Loud and clear.

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