Raps vs Willie Revillame based on tampered video — counsel

The child abuse complaints filed against TV host Willie Revillame were based on “spliced and doctored" video, his legal counsel said on Thursday. In a statement, lawyer Leonard de Vera said a viewing of the unedited 48 minutes of the TV appearance of Jan-Jan Suan, the six-year-old boy who was made to “macho dance" in Revillame’s TV show “Willing Willie" in exchange for cash, would show that the eight-minute video that was uploaded on YouTube “misrepresented the actual events and their proper context in an obvious bid to portray Revillame as a child abuser." De Vera said Jan-Jan only cried twice in the six times he danced on the show last March 12, but the uploaded YouTube clip made it appear like the boy was crying all the time. “The first time he danced, Jan-Jan cried because he became afraid of [former cager] Bonnel Balingit and also out of happiness that he made it to the show with the help of his parents, besting in the process some 3,000 other boys and girls who auditioned," the lawyer said. “The second, third and fourth times Jan-Jan danced he was not crying and was in fact clearly enjoying the moment. It was only during his fifth dance that he also cried a little because by then it has already been announced that he had lost in the contest. But on his sixth dance on the elevated platform, Jan-Jan was not crying," he added. A total of three complaints have been filed against Revillame for the “dancing boy" incident, which was widely condemned in various social networking sites. Among the complainants was Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky" Soliman. De Vera, in his statement, said the complainants, including Soliman, have admitted that their actions were a result of viewing the Youtube video. He also noted that Soliman, as early as March 28, had already condemned Revillame as an alleged child abuser despite the fact that she only asked her staff at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to check on the boy a day later. “It’s really puzzling why Secretary Soliman already concluded on March 28 that Willie violated the Anti-Child Abuse Act when she or anyone from DSWD had yet to interview or conduct an assessment on Jan-jan at the time," he said. - KBK, GMA News