Sex harassment plaint vs. PNP official: Napolcom finds probable cause in policewoman's filing of raps

The complaint for sexual harassment filed against a former director of the PNP Regional Training School in Apas was already upgraded into a full-blown investigation after National Police Commission probers, in the pre-charge investigation, found probable cause for the complaint.

Napolcom-7 assistant regional director Homer Cabaral said lawyer Maximo Lasaca was designated as hearing officer for the case of sexual harassment that PO1 Blaire Francis Cuevas-Quezon had filed against Supt. Eldorado Gallego, former official of the training school.

Lawyer Aloha Peñaranda, after the pre-charge investigation, said they found probable cause that PO1 Quezon-now assigned at the Internal Affairs Service of the Cebu Provincial Police Office-was a victim of sexual harassment.

In her complaint, Quezon attached a photograph, she had taken with her cellular phone camera, showing Superintendent Gallego entered the female PNP trainees' quarters even if this was banned from men's entry.

The Napolcom-7 probers rejected Gallego's argument that he went to the quarters merely to buy "load" for his cellular phone from one of the trainees selling it.

Gallego was eventually relieved from his post in the school after Quezon and 71 co-police trainees for public safety junior leadership course filed a petition at the office of Margarita Cojuanco, president of the Philippine Public Safety College, for his immediate relief.

Quezon alleged that Gallego sexually harassed her either by sending her text messages or for forcing her to go with him outside the camp. There was a time, she alleged, that Gallego forced her to go with him to a dinner and later to a disco.

Some of Quezon's classmates that she had requested to tail and monitor her every time she was with Gallego, had executed affidavits attesting that they saw Gallego held Quezon's hand and sometimes put his arm on her shoulder.

Quezon said that each time she received text messages from Gallego, she would let her fellow trainees read them. One of Gallego's messages-one Saturday night while she was alone inside the women's barracks-allegedly instructed her to turn off the lights because he would get inside.

The alleged harassment started when Gallego ordered Quezon to teach the recruits that were on training at the RTS annex building in barangay Gaas, Balamban.

He personally drove her there and, on their way home, Gallego allegedly pulled over the car along the road far from any house. There, he courted her, she said, even if they were both married.

Gallego has so far denied strongly the allegations of Quezon. - Rene U. Borromeo/RAE