ILOILO CITY – A television reporter suffered minor injuries when she was manhandled inside a police station after covering a traffic accident early yesterday morning.

GMA reporter Charlene Belvis, 24, suffered scratches and bruises after she was hit several times allegedly by Andrea Gorriceta at around 3:55 a.m. at the compound of the Jaro District police station.

Video footages showed Gorriceta, 27, slapping Belvis on the side of her head. She was also shown pulling Belvis by her hair and dragging her briefly inside the police station, leaving the reporter in tears.

Belvis hit her head on the floor and suffered scratches on her arm and bruises on her head and body because of the attack.

“It was so sudden and unexpected... I did not know what to do,” Belvis, a reporter of the network for two years, said in a telephone interview.

Gorriceta was apparently irked when the television crew earlier took footages of her and her car. She told dyOK Aksyon Radyo that she repeatedly asked Belvis and her crew not to take footages but the crew persisted.

Gorriceta had earlier also reportedly hit a woman, identified as Ria Aquino, while she was maneuvering her car in front of the MO2 bar and restaurant in Mandurriao District, and also bumped into a concrete post.

She said in the radio interview that she drove away after three men stoned her car after she bumped into Aquino.

The television crew located Gorriceta's car along Jalandoni Street in Jaro District and immediately alerted the police. But the car sped off to the Jaro station.

Belvis said they followed the car and the policemen to the police station and continued taking video footages including the damage to the car.

Gorriceta's male companion tried to stop Belvis' cameraman from taking the video but Belvis argued that they were just doing their jobs.

Gorriceta first slapped Belvis while they were about to enter the police station. Minutes later, she again approached Belvis inside the station and pulled her hair and dragged her.

The network plans to file criminal charges against Gorriceta, Gerthtrode Tan-Baterina, the station's supervising producer for news, said.

Baterina said they will not agree to any settlement deal with Gorriceta but will sue her for grave oral defamation, slander by deeds and physical injuries.*NPB

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