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GOMA MAULED ME FOR HONKING HORN -- MOTORIST

Quezon City, May 12, 2000 A motorist, who claims actor and Presidential Adviser on Youth and Sports Richard Gomez and two of his bodyguards roughed him up for honking his horn while the actor was shooting a TV show, has filed charges of slight physical injuries and grave abuse of authority in the Quezon City Prosecutor's Office.

Ricci Lalic, an administrative assistant at the University Center Foundation, accused the actor and his bodyguards of ganging up on him last March 27 over a traffic misunderstanding.

Lalic was driving along Scout Albano Street in Quezon City on his way to his office adjacent to the ABS-CBN Audience Center when he was caught in a long traffic queue. Not knowing that a TV show was being shot, Lalic honked his horn twice to urge the vehicles ahead of him to move. This apparently angered the actor, one of the TV show’s stars.

Lalic said Gomez was furious and beckoned him for a talk in front of the University Foundation Office some meters away. Lalic alleged that as he got out of his truck, Gomez approached him and hit him in the chest, causing him to fall down.

Then, as complainant struggled to his feet, a bodyguard of the actor, on Gomez's signal, punched him in the face and the stomach.

Another bodyguard, this time, joined by the actor, hit him too. He said the three men took turns in beating him up, stopping only when the actor's wife Lucy Torres stepped in and pulled Gomez away.