Lawyer faces VAWC case

FOR allegedly destroying the personal things of his estranged wife, a lawyer will face trial in court after he was charged with a criminal case by the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office.

Prosecutor Gandhi Truya found enough evidence to charge Django (not his real name) with Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004.

Bail was set at P6,000 for the accused, whose case was resolved after he failed to submit his counter-affidavit.

Complainant Monica (not her real name) sued her husband, together with his brother and five other men, went to her residence on April 5, 2010 at 1 p.m.

The accused told her to leave the house, but she stayed.

Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the names of the accused and victim for the law prohibits naming them.

Django and company then carried the furniture and other things from the living room to the front yard.

Monica, who was with her friend, locked the front door.

After she heard someone from the group pounding on the door, she and her friend passed through the back door and locked it.

“When we passed by the front door, I saw the paramour of my husband laughing at me,” she said in her affidavit. “I was so humiliated because all the neighbors were watching.”

She reported the incident to two police officers at an outpost located near a mall.

The officers escorted Monica back home, but when they arrived there, they were blocked by the accused and his brother.

Django allegedly threatened to charge the police officers with trespassing, and Monica just had the incident recorded in the blotter to avoid further trouble.

When Monica came home later that night, she discovered her things scattered on the ground outside her house.

In his resolution, Truya said one of the definitions of “act of violence” against women is “entering or remaining in the dwelling or on the property of the woman or her child against her will and engaging in any form of harassment or violence.”