to file or not to file a case :( help po please..

here it goes..

my friend("anne") had a may-december love affair and dun sa affair na un, ung friend("anne") ko po is minor and the guy was of legal age na..

she didnt tell me at first bout what happened to her relationship with that guy until i noticed it.. lagi po kasi siyang tulala and iyak ng iyak.. then i said masyado na syang O.A and then she suddenly told me about what really happened..

nung hndi pa sila break, the guy would force "anne" to send "malicious videos" to him, then, she would send those videos naman kasi daw ntatakot siya sa guy. after that when they would meet up they were "intimate" and the guy would video record those "intimate moments".. before they broke up sabi daw nung guy kay "anne" wala na yung video kaya na-clear yung mind ni "anne"...and then they broke-up na kasi umalis ng pinas yung guy, bale he left her hanging.

weeks later may na-discover ung classmates ni "anne" sa isang social website na yung guy ay member, and then most interesting part of it was may ibang gf pla yung guy and nalaman nung other gf..

sobra ung snabi nung other girl kay "anne" (words such as bitch,whore etc..)pero she didn't reply on any of it.

nagka-confront daw si "anne" and yung other girl sa website na un , after ng conversation nila ni "anne" the other girl said these exact words

"baka gusto mong may ipakalat ako sayo "anne"....yung attachments sa (email add.nung guy)"....."anne" didn't reply on that message na...

after few weeks ulit yung guy naman yung nagsbi ng

"Tgilan nio na gf ko.. bka may pasabugin ako tungkol sa kaibigan nyo (referring to "anne")..

I want to help my friend kasi sobrang nasira na siya .. published pa naman ung mga messages na yun,maraming nkabasa lalo na sa school na pinapasukan niya, she's taking a medical course pa naman..

i would really appreciate your help ..

In cases like this, the first question isn't what remedy the law can provide for your friend;it's whether your friend wants to take some form of legal action in the first place. you may want to help, but if she just wants to keep everything private then you should respect her decision.

Your friend can recourse to legal action. She can file criminal cases for seduction and/or violations of the Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC) law. I must warn, however, that in spite of the confidentiality of records, these things have a way of getting public.

In a similar case I was involved in before, what we did as lawyers was to discretely approach the taker of the video and threaten him with criminal cases unless he could assure us that no copy was ever distributed and that he deleted all of it. He complied and the matter ended there.

yup.. she's thinking of filing a legal case po.. I spoke with her aunt and she said that she would definitely file a case against the guy pero she's thinking og what cases to file pa..

pwede po ba na yung aunt na lang po ni "anne" ung mag-file ng case kasi "anne's" parents doesnt know about the issue yet..

--thanks po sa reply and advice, we really appreciated it

seduction is a private crime, the aunt cannot file it for her.

VAWC is not. yes, the aunt can file the case, but it will not prosper without anne's direct participation.