Katrina: I want justice! Kho: She’s also part of this mess

MANILA, Philippines – Katrina Halili cried for justice while Dr. Hayden Kho Jr. blamed the actress for allegedly leading him to a reckless life. The two celebrities finally came face to face Thursday and clashed during a two-hour hearing of the Senate on Kho's sex video now known as "Hayden cam" that has been the talk of the town since last week. The Senate Committee on Women, Children and Family Relations kicked off its hearing on the sex video scandal involving Halili and the celebrity doctor despite a warning from a senior senator at 1:30 p.m. Katrina was asked to make her statement an hour later. In between sobs, she said she suffered humiliation because of the controversy. The actress said she is determined to get justice. Later in the hearing, Kho, soggy after being poured with water on the head by a disgruntled retired police officer in a minor incident at the hearing , admitted his shame and guilt but said Katrina must also share the blame. A "sideshow" it might have turned out to be, as Senate Minority Leader Pimentel Jr. feared shortly before the start on Thursday afternoon of the “Hayden cam" Senate hearing. Yes, it was a sideshow – a very private affair that however became a very public scandal that blew up in the faces of Kho and Halili – complete with sex, lies, and videotape. And toward the end of the hearing, Kho stirred up the issue even more, revealing threats against his life if he should decide to spill the beans on the "very powerful" supplier of illegal drugs. So was it "useless," as Pimentel also put it? Not if you ask Sen. Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. and Sen. Ana Consuelo "Jamby" Madrigal. At the end of the hearing, both were enthusiastic that the Senate could craft new legislation that would protect other women from going through the same experience as Katrina Halili. The actress had accused Kho of videotaping her having sex with him – without her consent – and then allowing the spread of the footage through the Internet. It was Revilla who sparked public outrage and curiosity on May 21 with his privilege speech blasting Kho. Madrigal - chair of the Committee on Women, Children and Family Relations - agreed to investigate the scandal. As Revilla said at the start of the hearing, the probe would be a chance to turn "gray areas" of the law on sex-related crimes into "black or white." Madrigal said the hearing was not only for the benefit of Halili but of other women as well. But Halili said that even if Kho were to be convicted and his medical license revoked the sex videos would continue to spread and be viewed. In other words, for the senators, the issue of the sex videos may be in aid of legislation. Trying to control her sobbing, Halili told the committee: "Araw-araw biktima po ako habang pinapanood ang nasabing video. Hiling ko po ang hustisya sa hukuman kahit alam ko pong habang-buhay ko nang dadalhin ang ginawa sa akin. [Kahit] patay na po ako, pero may video la pa rin at Internet. [Every day I'm a victim for as long as someone watches the said video. I'm asking the court for justice even though I know that I will have to bear this burden for my entire life. And even when I'm already dead, the videos and the Internet will still be there.] She said she hoped her name would be the last associated with such sex videos. How the sideshow starts The "sideshow" started when Katrina was being led into the session hall by security men minutes after Kho showed up to face the senators. A man in a bright-red sports shirt walked behind the chair of the white-shirted Kho – and suddenly showered the doctor over the head with water from a plastic bottle. Senate security personnel immediately collared the man – who turned out to be tabloid columnist and civil rights activist Abner Afuang, a former Manila police officer and an ex-mayor of Pagsanjan, Laguna. He is known for going on hunger strikes and burning foreign flags to fight a cause. Phillip Salvador – who portrayed the ex-cop in the 1988 movie "Afuang (Bounty Hunter)" – happened to be in the audience, which included many prominent personalities. As near-pandemonium broke loose, Madrigal repeatedly banged her gavel and called out: "Sergeant-at-arms, please arrest that man! Arrest that man!" Meanwhile, her companions calmed down an agitated-looking Halili, who was dressed in green shirt, with a pin with the word "VOW" visible from afar. "This is precisely, your honor, why we objected to a public hearing," Lorna Kapunan, Kho's lawyer said, as her client, saying nothing, dried himself with a handkerchief. Kapunan had earlier asked for an executive session for her client. The ensuing discussion, during which Sen. Jinggoy Estrada demanded the presence of Kho at the session hall, delayed the start of the hearing for about an hour. 'Mostly drugs and sex' Unavoidably, the underlying personal current between Kho and Halili – who both admitted to having an affair in 2007 while Kho was still the boyfriend of Dr. Vicki Belo – came out during the hearing. Under questioning of Estrada and later Revilla, Kho said it was Halili who lured him into taking drugs – specifically MDMA, or methylenedioxyamphetamine, more popularly known as Ecstasy. He said, however, that he was not blaming the use of drugs for his taking the sex videos. He also insisted that he had nothing to do with the spread of the videos though the Internet. Kho said there was "no real conversation" between him and Halili that their affair was about "mostly drugs and sex." Halili flares up In answer to Estrada's question, she denied ever using illegal drugs, much less urging Kho to use drugs himself. On her turn to be questioned by Revilla, Halili could barely contain her reaction to Kho's statements. Asked what she was feeling at the moment, Halili gave a one-word answer: "Galit [Anger]." And on Revilla's next question, she said she had no more projects since the start of the year. Last December, her name was dragged in as a third-party partly responsible for the breakup of Belo and Kho. That was when rumors that she and Kho have sex videos went around. "Maraming tao sa paligid ko ang sama sama ng tingin sa akin [So many people around me look at me badly]," she said. Then she stared at Kho, who was also probing at her, and she flared up: "Sobrang sakit, sobrang galit ko bakit nagawa ng hayop na 'to yun sa 'kin... Ang kapal ng mukha mo, nakakatingin ka pa... It hurts so much and I'm so angry how this animal can do that to me. You have such gall to even look at me...]." Madrigal immediately broke in and warned her against using "foul language." 'Victim of love' Halili said she entered into the affair believing that Kho loved her. She said she even introduced Kho to her family. “Minahal ko si Hayden. Bata ako kaya madaling nalagyan ng piring ang aking mga mata para isiping ako lang ang nagmamay-ari ng puso niya. Pero gaya ng lahat ng relasyon nagsimula sa kasinungalingan wala itong pinatunguhan," said the sobbing Katrina. [I loved Hayden. I was young thus my eyes were blinded by the thought that I was the only one in his heart. But like other relationships that started in lies, ours had no future.] “Wala akong malay na ang bawat yakap at halik ay scripted. Buong -buo kong ibinigay ‘yong puso at kaluluwa ko sa isang lalaking gumagawa pala ng sariling pelikula. Ang tanga ko. Imbes na doctor, director pala. Inaamin ko ang pagkakamali ko. Ang pagkakamali ko ay minahal ko siya," she added. [I had no idea that every hug and kiss was scripted. I gave all my heart and soul to a man whom I didn’t know was doing his own film. I was a fool. I thought he was a doctor, but it turned out that he was a director. I admit my mistake. My mistake was learning to love him.] So who spread the video? Kho said that he only took the videos, and even admitted that Halili didn't know he was doing it. But he had no hand in spreading the videos through the Internet – and neither did his former girlfriend Belo, whose lawyer Adele Tamano read a statement on her behalf, as she was in Europe. Tamano read the doctor's sworn affidavit, stating that last December, after breaking up with Kho, she asked Kho's friends Erik Johnston Chua and Mark Herbert Rosario to destroy her sex video with Kho. Belo said she gave Chua and Rosario a key to her apartment where Kho was staying to have her videos deleted from the hard disk of the computer that was issued to Kho by the Belo Medical Group.