Rama: Charges vs me ‘false, baseless’

Talent manager Annabelle Rama on Tueday asked the court to junk the child abuse and oral defamation cases filed against her by former actress Nadia Montenegro.

Rama, who used to manage Montenegro’s teenage daughters, made the plea in the counter-affidavit she filed with the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office during a preliminary investigation.

Montenegro earlier accused Rama of making her daughters work for more than 40 hours a week and spreading nasty rumors about them. Last week, she filed another suit, this time for libel, after the talent manager reportedly wrote unflattering “tweets” about her on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

In her counter-affidavit, Rama, wife of actor Eddie Gutierrez, claimed that Montenegro’s allegation of child abuse was not backed up by sufficient evidence.

According to her, the charges were “false, untruthful” and aimed at destroying her reputation.

On the charge of making Montenegro’s daughters work long hours, Rama said that the former actress had approved the working schedule for her children.

“She is their guardian, I am not. I am simply their manager and my role and obligation was to try to get them [roles] in shows or projects,” her affidavit read.

She also denied Montenegro’s claim that she had ordered the two girls to entertain powerful men, pointing out that the complainant did not indicate the specific date, time, place and people involved in the social events she reportedly made them to attend.

“The allegations [are] all false and baseless since they are only intended to instill in the mind of the public that I [am] engaged in the business of prostitution,” Rama said.

She urged the court to dismiss outright the cases against her “in view of the fact that they failed to indicate that the offense alleged were committed [in] Quezon City.”