Dethroned ‘Mutya’ wants more after QC court victory

VINDICATED BEAUTY According to the lawyer of Esabela Cabrera, shown here in her winning form at the 1997 Mutya ng Pilipinas beauty pageant, she deserves more than the amount earlier set by the court to compensate for her “emotional insecurity and personal embarrassment’’ following her dethronement 16 years ago. SCREEN GRAB FROM YOUTUBE

MANILA, Philippines—How much does it cost to appease a deposed “queen”?

A dethroned Mutya ng Pilipinas winner is asking a Quezon City court to increase the amount that the pageant organizers should pay her, after she sued for damages 16 years ago and won her case in July.

According to her counsel, Esabela Cabrera suffered “strenuous, offensive and scandalous indignation” after being stripped of her Mutya title in 1997 due to her pregnancy and impending marriage.

Lawyer Nelson Borja filed a motion on Thursday in the sala of Assisting Judge Ma. Rita Bascos-Sarabia of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221, asking the court to order the organizers to pay P1.87 million.

In a July 1 ruling favoring Cabrera, the court set the amount at only P1.1 million. It included P400,000 representing Cabrera’s prize as Mutya 1997 winner, P500,000 in moral damages, P100,000 in exemplary damages and P100,000 in attorney’s fees.

Ordered to pay were The Miss Asia Pacific Quest Inc., which promotes, manages and administers the pageant; Carousel Productions Inc., the producer; Ramon Monzon, then president of Carousel; Leandro Enrique, then president of Miss Asia; and co-organizer Lorraine Schuck.

Also ordered to pay was the 1997 first runner-up, Annie Moraga, who replaced Cabrera and received the prizes as the reigning queen.

But in the motion, Borja asked the court to increase the compensatory damages to P420,000; the moral damages to P1 million; the exemplary damages to P300,000 and the attorney’s fees to P150,000.

“Plaintiff had no other recourse but to struggle under pain of public humiliation and moral discrimination while studying at De La Salle University-Dasmariñas. (She went through) the same feeling of emotional insecurity and personal embarrassment even in her workplace at different corporations,” the lawyer stressed.

“Plaintiff is now emotionally relieved and gloriously vindicated by the wisdom and sense of justice of this court, but had to content herself with an ordinary employment from one private corporation to another up to the present,” Borja added.

Cabrera filed a civil case after the organizers stripped her of the title on May 6, 1997, three days after she was crowned.

In the July 1 decision, Judge Sarabia gave weight to her claim that the defendants did not give her due process before she was dethroned.