After filing a criminal complaint against a netizen for making a rape joke directed at her, ABS-CBN star Liza Soberano today said that she intends to sue another person for allegedly leaking her private information.
Soberano said in an interview with cable channel ANC that she filed a case against Converge ICT employee Melissa Olaes first because an immediate action against the latter was needed.
“There are actually two different people [that I want to sue]. And we will be doing something about the [employee who committed] data privacy violation as well,” she said, without naming the other netizen.
Read: Actress Liza Soberano files criminal case against telco employee over alleged rape ‘joke’
“It’s just that I had to take action on this other matter first because there’s more of an urgency for it,” she added.
Olaes, who has publicly apologized to Soberano, said that the actress deserved to be raped because Soberano terminated Converge’s internet services. Meanwhile, Converge vowed that disciplinary measures will be imposed on its erring employee, who may have violated Republic Act No. 10127 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
Soberano explained that she filed the case because she found the joke distasteful and it shouldn’t just slide.
“I think for the longest time all of us public figures and celebrities have been accustomed to letting things pass. If someone bashes you, we just let it go because we understand that everybody has their own opinions and because we are public figures we should just allow everybody to say what they want about us without batting an eye. But now that the issue is rape I don’t think I can just let that pass,” she said.
“The reason why I wanted to pursue this case, I wanted to take a stand for all the silent victims of rape, of rape jokes, of misogyny. I feel that it’s about time that it ends because rape is not funny. There’s nothing funny joking about it,” she added.
Her lawyer Juanito Lim Jr. said that they will seek assistance from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) to confirm the identities of those who have maligned Soberano online.
Read: Too much attention on beauty over talent ‘hurts’ Liza Soberano
“Right now, we have to rely on whatever resources that we have. For one, it would appear that these personalities have identified themselves clearly. But we are also considering other measures like probably tapping the assistance of NBI, or the PNP for the purpose of ascertaining their identities,” he said.
“We have the name, we have the picture of these persons. We have that,” he added.
