Actress to sue GMA-7, talent management execs

MANILA, Philippines - Actress Sarah Lahbati is set to file grave coercion charges against executives of GMA-7 network for reportedly compelling her to sign a co-management contract against a talent management company through “ threats and intimidation.”

Lahbati, 19, personally went to the Quezon City prosecutor’s office yesterday to swear to her seven-page complaint-affidavit against her handler, Michael Uycoco, and GMA-7 executives Annette Gozon-Abrogar and Arsenio Baltazar III.

Also named respondents were Alberto Munoz, Shiela Buendia, and Andrew Dee of Icons Celebrity Marketing.

Lahbati’s lawyer, Marie Glen Abraham, said they charged Abrogar with perjury before the Makati prosecutor’s office in connection with the libel case filed by the network executive against the actress. The court set Lahbati’s arraignment on Aug. 22.

Abrogar, in a statement, said she welcomes the charges “since she’s now fighting in the proper venue. Now the public will know what the truth is.”

Abraham said her client will be out of the country but will be back in August “to attend the hearings.”

In her affidavit, Lahbati claimed she felt “threatened and intimidated” after her decision not sign a co-management agreement with Icons. She said it was harder to work because of the “coldness” she felt from Abrogar, Baltazar and Uycoco.

She also said Abrogar added fear and intimidation when she filed a libel case before a Makati City court against her. Abrogar filed the case after the actress, in a series of tweets in January, tagged her and Baltazar in a supposed under-the-table deal with Icons.

Lahbati, who returned to the Philippines from Switzerland last week, told reporters that she went back to the country to clear her name. She said returning to show business is not her priority at the moment.

She already posted bail on the libel case filed against her. A separate breach of contract case was also filed by GMA-7 against her before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 77.

According to GMA-7, the complaint was due to Lahbati’s “failure and refusal to comply with her obligations and undertakings under the management contract she had signed up with GMA-7 and appearances in her program assignments despite notice and advice.”

In Lahbati’s perjury complaint against Abrogar, she said the GMA executive perjured herself when she said in her complaint that it was her and her mother, Esther Lahbati, who inquired about Icons and insisted it to do a branding plan for her.

Lahbati said in her affidavit she did not know about Icons until Abrogar and Baltazar, the head of GMA-7’s talent development and management department, told her about it in a meeting in December 2011 or January 2012.

Lahbati is one of the winners of the 2011 GMA-7 reality show StarStruck 5. – Janvic Mateo, Mike Frialde