Former city health officer begins prison term for sexual harassment

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — After seven long years of waiting for justice, sexual harassment victim Juliet Yee-Ignacio finally saw her "tormentor" in jail.

Last Thursday, former city health officer Rico Jacutin began serving the six-month imprisonment imposed on him by the Supreme Court, which found him guilty of sexually harassing Yee-Ignacio in 1995 when she was still a fresh nursing graduate.

Yee was applying for a position at the City Health Office when Jacutin subjected her to a "physical examination" inside his car, supposedly as a requisite for employment.

The Supreme Court denied with finality Jacutin’s motion for reconsideration last Oct. 14, paving the way for his imprisonment. The tribunal earlier had found him guilty of violating Republic Act 7877 or the sexual harassment law.

The court also fined Jacutin a total of P70,000, P50,000 of which was for damages. This amount is only 10 percent of what the Sandiganbayan earlier had awarded to Yee after it found the former city health officer guilty of the charge.

"The amount is not enough, but the justice given to my client is great that after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of her, many victims of sexual harassment came out in the open. It also served as a deterrent to those who have been used to harassing their subordinates," lawyer Reynaldo Llego, Yee’s legal counsel, said.

Llego said he received the Supreme Court’s entry of judgment last March, but Jacutin still filed a motion for permission to file his second motion for reconsideration, which, though noted, was not acted upon by the tribunal.

The High Court said it would no longer entertain any motion from Jacutin in the future.

"I am more triumphant and the ruling of the Supreme Court has helped me so much in coping with the trauma I went through," said Yee-Ignacio, now the company nurse of the Jacinto Southern Energy Corp. in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental.