SUSPENDED Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo was a no-show in yesterday’s preliminary hearing on the qualified human trafficking case filed against her before the Justice Department in connection with the raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator hub in her municipality.
Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty said Guo was given until August 6 to file her counter-affidavit in response to the complaint.
Ty said this was because the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group have added another respondent in the case and four more new complainants.
“Because of this, the filing of the counter-affidavits of the respondents was moved to August 6, which they told me is non-extendible,” Sy, the undersecretary-in-charge of the Inter-Agency Council Against Human Trafficking, told reporters after the preliminary hearing.
“So, hopefully, by August 6 after mabigyan ng pagkakataon ang mga respondents na mag-file ng kanilang mga counter-affidavit, submitted for resolution na ang kaso (after the respondents were given more time to file their respective counter-affidavits, the case would be submitted for resolution),” he added.
Ty said the PAOCC and the PNP-CIDG have told him they would not file a reply affidavit to the respondents’ counter affidavits.
Most of the respondents, including former Technology Livelihood Resource Center head Dennis Cunanan, were also absent in yesterday’s hearing. Like Guo, were represented by their counsels.
Ty and PAOCC spokesperson Winston Casio challenged Guo to come out and make good on her statement that she would answer the charges in a proper forum.
“This is certainly the proper forum for her,” Ty said, adding the suspended local chief executive should face the panel of prosecutors.
“She should have attended and presented and subscribed her counter affidavit. It saddens us that she did not attend. She may have gone into hiding and we have yet to locate her,” Ty said.
Last Sunday, Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero called on law enforcement authorities to redouble their efforts to locate and arrest Guo.
Escudero said the Senate, which had issued an arrest order against Guo after she failed to attend the hearings on her supposed involvement in the operation of an offshore online gaming hub in Bamban, has no capability to locate the suspended local chief executive.
Aside from her supposed involvement in the POGO operation, Guo’s citizenship is also being questioned due to her inconsistent answers about her background and dubious documents regarding her Filipino citizenship.
The Office of the Solicitor General had asked a Tarlac court to cancel her birth certificate as a prelude to the filing of a quo warranto petition against her.
Guo has denied involvement in the POGO operation and insisted she is a Filipino.
She has sought the intervention of the Supreme Court to stop the Senate from compelling her to attend its hearings and from digging deeper into her personal life.
