Romeo Luis R.

Villonco
GR No. 182835
Ang VS Court Of Appeals
FACTS
The respondent Irish Sagud accused Rustan Ang the petitioner of sending a pornographic photo
of a nude but edited body of the respondent. The photo came with threats that the petitioner will
post in the numerous online chat platforms. As a result of this, the respondent texted the
petitioner to meet her in the Lorentess resort , there two police officers arrest the petioer and
confiscated the Sony Ericsson P900 cellphone and numerous sim cards which were used to send
the photos to the cellphone of the respondent.
According to the petitioner this is not what happened. The petitioner admitted that he was
courting the respondent for a time in October of 2003 this lasted until December of that same
year and that their relationship had ended. A year after the petitioner claims that the respondent
wanted to reconcile their differences and decided to meet up on December of 2004, but when the
respondent heard about the petitioner having a new girlfriend and a children she decided to walk
out on him. His claims or his defense states that the reasons he had those photos is because he
was helping the respondent because a prankster has been messaging her about these photos and h
only acted like her to retrieve the photos and send them to the respondent in order to help her.
ISSUES
1. Whether or not the threats and the obscene photo were sent from the phone of Mr. Ang
himself, therefore violating Section 5(H) of R.A. 9262?
2. Whether or not sending threats and the obscene of photo constitute harassment that
causes psychological Distress and Humiliation which would lead to a violation of Section
5(h) of R.A. 9262.

Held/Rationale

1. The court upholds the decision of the Regional Trial Court and also the court of appeals
by denying the petition of Mr. Ang.
2. The Regional Trial Court also did not need the cellphone of the petitioner as they already
had copies of the threats and photographs from the phone of the respondent. The Court
found that that the statement of the respondent has convinced them that Mr. Ang
purposely sent these photos to threaten the respondent.
3. Through these photos Mr. Ang violated Section 5(h) of R.A. 9262 violence against
women and children as the sending of these obscene photos and threats constitutes
psychological distress and therefore violates R.A. 9262. The RTC was not impressed by
the claim of the petitioner that it was the respondent that sent the photos in the first place.