A video of Janelle Manahan purportedly showing intimate moments she shared with her deceased boyfriend Ramgen Bautista, which have been circulating online since Thursday, was “another attempt at murdering her, this time through character assassination,” her lawyer said.
Manahan’s lead counsel Argee Guevarra called on Bautista’s half-brother, Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., the author of the country’s antivoyeurism law, to help prosecute the perpetrators of the crime.
“[Ramgen’s] siblings took possession of his belongings after he died,” Guevarra said over the phone, pointing out that some of his clothes and accessories have been worn by his siblings in some of their public appearances.
Cryptic messages
For some months, the younger Bautista siblings posted cryptic messages on their Facebook accounts which Guevarra said appeared to allude to his client. The general message of the status updates, the lawyer added, pointed to Janelle “as not being clean.”
The lawyer said the series of messages were tantamount to “blackmailing his client,” probably in an attempt to dissuade her from further testifying on what she knew about the family.
The two-minute video, its links passed on to social networking sites, showed Ramgen, who allegedly took the video, and Janelle sharing intimacies inside what appeared to be a rest room.
Although distraught by the latest twist in her ordeal, Guevarra said his client was determined to pursue the case. Manahan, who also sustained injuries when she was shot in the same incident with her boyfriend, is now with her mother at an undisclosed location brought about by the tragedy.
Purpose
“What we want to know is the purpose of circulating this video,” the lawyer said. “Why stoop to this level of blackening the memory of your dead brother just to get even at Janelle for speaking about facts surrounding the crime?”
Guevarra admitted that there could be more videos that might circulate since Janelle lived with the Bautistas for five years. But publishing these without any consent is a violation of Republic Act 9995, the antivoyeurism law, he said.
“We hope the senator would take up my client’s plight as another cause because what she experienced was a clear violation of the antivoyeurism law,” the lawyer said, recalling that Senator Revilla had pursued an investigation of a case involving one of his leading ladies two years ago.
In 2009, Revilla convened a Senate inquiry into the series of sex tapes that leaked in cyberspace featuring disgraced physician Hayden Kho and female entertainment personalities, the most prominent of whom was Katrina Halili.
Ramgen Bautista was shot and stabbed to death by a masked assailant in their family’s house at BF Homes Subdivision in Parañaque City in October. Manahan was inside the room during the attack and was also shot in the face by the lone gunman.
At least seven persons, including two of Bautista’s siblings, have been suspected of conspiring and carrying out Ramgen’s murder, which witnesses claimed to have been the second attempt on the actor‘s life.
Apart from siblings Ma. Ramona and Ramon Joseph, another sibling, Ma. Ragelyn “Gail” Bautista-Furuyama, could have also been involved in the plot to kill Ramgen, the eldest of the brood of nine of former Sen. Ramon Revilla Sr. by Genelyn Magsaysay, according to Manahan.
Guevarra said the latest turn of events in the Bautista case only highlighted their suspicion that other family members might have been “complicit in their elder brother’s murder.”
“Up to know, they are still plotting and conspiring to assassinate the survivor, who is my client,” the lawyer said.