BY ASHZEL HACHERO and VICTOR REYES
THE Pasig City Regional Trial Court Branch 167 has ordered the transfer of dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo from the PNP custodial facility in Camp Crame to the Pasig City Jail Female Dormitory in Nagpayong, Pinagbuhatan in Pasig City.
The PNP said it will comply with the order of the Pasig court.
“Since there is an order from the Pasig RTC, we will honor this court order,” PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo told a press briefing.
“As soon as her scheduled arraignment (at the Valenzuela City court) is over, we will comply with the (Pasig court) order which the PNP received (Thursday),” she also said.
Fajardo held the press briefing prior to the scheduled arraignment of Guo.
The PNP brought Guo before the court on Friday afternoon, but Valenzuela RTC Branch 282 Presiding Judge Elena Amano moved her arraignment scheduled yesterday to September 30.
This as Amano ordered Guo’s camp and the prosecution to submit a position paper on the dismissed mayor’s motion seeking to quash the information for graft.
The graft charge is in connection with Guo’s alleged use of her position to facilitate the operations of the POGO facility in Bamban that was raided by authorities. The case was filed by the Department of Interior and Local Government.
The graft case pending before the Valenzuala court was originally filed with the Tarlac Regional Trial Court Branch 109, which earlier issued a warrant of arrest against the dismissed mayor of Bamban on September 5. The case was transferred from the Tarlac RTC to the Valenzuela RTC.
The Tarlac court set a bail of P180,000 for Guo, but she has not posted bail.
She has been detained at the PNP custodial center in Camp Crame since September 6 following her arrest in Jakarta, Indonesia on September 4.
Guo fled the country on July 18 amid an ongoing congressional probe into her links in the operations of the Bamban POGO facility. She and her siblings Wesley and Shiela fled to Malaysia, travelled to Singapore then to Indonesia where the Guo sisters were arrested in separate operations.
In a message at around 5:30 p.m. yesterday, Fajardo said the PNP has yet to transfer Guo to the custody of the Pasig City jail.
ARREST WARRANTS
The Pasig court commitment order was issued as Presiding Judge Annielyn Medes-Cabelis ordered the arrest of Guo, whose Chinese name is Guo Hua Ping, and her co-accused, namely Walter Wong Long, Huang Zhiyang, Rachelle Joan Malonzo Carreon, Zhang Ruijin, Baoying Lin, Yu Zheng Can, Dennis Cunanan, Jamielyn Cruz, Roderick Pujante, Juan Miguel Alpas, Merlie Joy Castro, Rita Yturralde, Rowena Evangelista, Thelma Laranan and Maybelline Millo alias “Shana Yiyi.”
Guo and the other accused are facing a non-bailable qualified trafficking in persons case filed by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) and the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) for their suspected involvement in the operation of an illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) in Bamban.
“After examining the five Informations, the resolution, and all the documents presented during the preliminary investigation, the Court finds probable cause to hold accused Alice Leal Guo for trial for the crime/s charged against them,” the court’s 4-page order dated September 19 said.
Guo’s lawyer Stephen David said they will file a petition for bail, saying that the prosecution’s case is weak.
He cited examples of defendants in non-bailable cases that were allowed to post bail on the finding that the prosecution’s evidence is weak, such as in the cases of former senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada, who were both charged for plunder in connection with the pork barrel scam.
The court also ordered the transfer of Long, who is currently detained at the Tarlac Provincial Jail, to the Pasig City Jail Male Dormitory managed by Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
“All the accused in these cases are not entitled to post bail as the charges against them are all non-bailable,” the court said.
The court set the arraignment of Guo and Long on the morning of September 27 through a videoconferencing hearing. The other accused remain at-large.
Guo was sued for trafficking for her role as incorporator of the Baofu real estate company that leased its land to the Hongsheng POGO, which was later renamed Zun Yuan and raided by authorities following reports of human trafficking and other abuses.
Zhiyang was tagged in a Senate committee hearing as the alleged “boss of all bosses” in POGO operations, while Cunanan, who is a former Technology Livelihood Resource Center chief, was charged for his role as a consultant in the the Bamban POGO hub and another offshore gaming firm in Porac, Pampanga that was also raided by the authorities over allegations of trafficking and torture of employees.
