August 7, 2024
MANILA – Suspended Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac, on Tuesday again failed to file her counteraffidavit to answer the qualified human trafficking complaint filed against her over her alleged ties to an illegal Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) in her town, prompting the prosecutors of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny her further extension.
Speaking to reporters, Assistant Justice Secretary Jose Dominic Clavano IV said Guo and three other Chinese incorporators of the company behind the Pogo hub did not submit their response during the preliminary investigation on Tuesday.
“Most of the respondents have already submitted their counteraffidavits. As far as they are concerned, the case is submitted for resolution,” Clavano said.
Meanwhile, former Technology Resource Center head Dennis Cunanan and two other respondents in the complaint were given an extension of 10 days, or up to Aug. 16, to file their response, he said.
Guo is facing arrest after Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who is leading a probe of illegal Pogo activities as chair of the Senate committee on women, children, family relations, and gender equality, cited the suspended mayor for contempt after she failed to appear at a Senate hearing for the second time on July 10. Guo has not been seen in public since her last Senate appearance in May.
March raid
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in late May filed graft charges against Guo over her alleged involvement in the illegal Pogo hub in her town. On June 3, the Office of the Ombudsman suspended Guo for up to six months following the DILG filing.
On June 21, the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) submitted the qualified trafficking complaint to the DOJ against Guo and 14 other respondents.
Guo and her co-respondents are facing a criminal case for violation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act. The case stemmed from the raid conducted by the CIDG and PAOCC on March 13 on Pogo firm Zun Yuan Technology, located in a 7.9-hectare property owned by Baofu Land Development Inc., where more than 800 workers, about 500 of them foreigners, were rescued.
Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty, who heads the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, previously said that the prosecution found multiple pieces of evidence linking Guo to the Pogo operations, such as documents showing that she applied for a letter of no objection for Hongsheng Gaming Technology.
Election offense
“Her involvement in the lessor company also came out and there is also other evidence where her name appeared in the documents found in the Pogo compound,” Ty said.
Hongsheng supposedly changed its business name to Zun Yuan Technology Inc. after law enforcement agencies first raided its facility in Barangay Anupul, Bamban, in February 2023.
As a politician, Guo faces another legal roadblock after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) authorized the filing of a complaint against her for “material misrepresentation” in her certificate of candidacy (COC) for the 2022 elections.
Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia on Tuesday said the Comelec en banc voted on Monday to adopt the recommendation of the poll body’s law department to file the complaint motu proprio (on one’s initiative) and conduct the preliminary investigation for Guo’s violation of Section 74 in relation to Section 262 of the Omnibus Election Code (OEC).
Section 74 of the OEC lists the pieces of information that an eligible candidate needs to provide in his or her COC, such as real name, address, citizenship, civil status, date of birth, and political party. Under Section 262, a violation of Section 74 is considered an election offense, punishable by up to six years in jail, disqualification to hold public office and deprivation of the right of suffrage.
Asked by reporters if Guo would still be able to file for candidacy for the 2025 midterm elections, Garcia did not reply definitively but said the Comelec would entertain all COCs filed by any person and that any interested party, or even the poll body itself, might initiate a challenge to the candidacy.
Guo ‘wannabes’ warned
To candidates who intend to commit misrepresentation in their COCs for next year’s midterm polls, Garcia warned: “If you try to do the same, you might not get disqualified or your candidacy not canceled anymore, but we will still be able to go after you [because] even if you win, you can still be sued and face criminal charges.”
Garcia said under the Comelec rules, the law department, headed by director Maria Norina Tangaro-Casingal, will file the complaint against Guo and conduct the preliminary investigation, during which the mayor will be given the opportunity to answer the complaint.
On Aug. 1, the law department fact-finding committee composed of lawyers Abigail Justine Lilagan, Neil Anthony Dabalos, and Ma. Stephanie Ann Domingo submitted its report, stating that “there were sufficient factual bases that would warrant the conduct of [the] preliminary investigation.”
In her COC, Guo attested to her eligibility for the position of mayor, stating under oath that she is natural-born Filipino citizen, born in Tarlac in 1986, and a resident of the Philippines for more or less 35 years.
NBI findings
The committee, however, said that based on the findings of the National Bureau of Investigation, the mayor is a Chinese national named “Guo Hua Ping, “who was born in Fujian, China, in 1990 and [is] a resident there as of March 2006.
“Accordingly, Mayor Guo’s declarations in her COC become seriously questionable and tainted with vestiges of a deliberate intent to deceive the electorate,” the committee said in its seven-page report.
The committee also used the investigation of Comelec’s election records and statistics department (ERSD) which examined the mayor’s fingerprints on her COC, voter registration records (VRR), Election Day computerized voter list, and Comelec biometric records. The fingerprints in the Comelec documents matched those on the fingerprint card of NBI Alien Form No. 5 that was generated when Guo Hua Ping applied for NBI clearance in March 2006.
The ERSD also said a “thorough and extensive scientific examination” of the personalized signatures on Guo’s VRR, COC, and Comelec biometric records as compared to the NBI records showed they were made by “one and the same person.”