Sarah Lahbati sues GMA Films exec for perjury

MANILA, Philippines - Actress Sarah Lahbati on Monday afternoon filed a complaint for perjury before the Makati City Prosecutor's Office against a GMA Films executive who sued her for libel.

Lahbati, 19, in her six-page complaint-affidavit, which she had subscribed to before 3rd Assistant City Prosecutor Analie Oga-Brual, claimed that GMA Films president Ana Teresa Gozon-Abrogar had perjured in her complaint for libel.

Abrogar, according to Lahbati, made "an assertion of falsehood" to establish alleged malice in her (Lahbati's) tweets made in her Twitter account.

Lahbati last July 12 returned to the Philippines from a six-month stay in Switzerland and posted a P10,000 bail before the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 59 after the court issued a warrant for her arrest.

Abrogar filed the libel suit against Lahbati because of posts on Lahbati's Twitter account accusing her of alleged irregularities in the management of her career. The court set Lahbati's arraignment on August 22.

Lahbati's lawyer, Marie Glenda Abraham, told reporters that she would be filing a motion to quash the libel complaint before the scheduled arraignment date.

Abaraham told reporters that the complaint of libel filed against Lahbati should be quashed as there is no law yet punishing libel done over the Internet.

In her complaint-affidavit against Abrogar, Lahbati said the GMA executive had perjured when she said in her libel complaint that it was her and her mother, Esther Lahbati who inquired about Icons Celebrity Marketing (ICONS) - a company that handles branding and imaging services to some GMA artists - and insisted that ICONS do a branding plan for her.

"I never knew ICONS until she (Abrogar) and Arsenio Baltazar III, the head of (GMA's) Talent Development and Management Department told me about it in a meeting they called for in Friday's (restaurant) in Tomas Morato, Quezon City sometime in late December 2011 or first week of January of 2012," said Lahbati in her affidavit.