Bamban Mayor Alice Guo. —photo from the official Facebook page of Sen. Risa Hontiveros
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Saturday urged Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac, and her family members to turn themselves in after Senate President Francis Escudero signed the warrants for their arrest for snubbing the Senate inquiry into the illegal activities of Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos).
“There are consequences in disregarding the subpoena (issued by the Senate). Complying with the subpoena has never been just optional,” Hontiveros said in an interview with radio station dwIZ.
Traumatized
“The fact that we have to arrest them for them to face the Senate, it looks like there are really powerful people behind the setting up and operations of Pogos,” she said.
READ: Cited for contempt at Senate, Guo goes to SC for help
Guo was cited in contempt and ordered arrested for twice refusing to appear in the continuing Senate hearings, where she had testified a few times earlier.
She said that she had been traumatized and appealed to the Supreme Court to stop Hontiveros and her committee from further questioning her. Guo said her constitutional rights to due process and privacy were being violated.
READ: Hontiveros: Arrest order vs Alice Guo, others for protection of Filipinos
“This arrest order upholds the mandate of the Senate to safeguard the well-being of Filipinos,” Hontiveros, the chair of the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality said in a statement.
Not in the farm
The July 11 order directing the Office of the Senate Sergeant-At-Arms (Ossaa) to arrest Guo, members of her family and several others linked to the Bamban Pogo operation was signed by both Escudero and Hontiveros.
The Ossaa reported that its officers did not find Guo in her farm in Bamban while her three siblings were also not at their addresses in Marilao, Bulacan, and in Valenzuela City.
However, the Senate security team was able to arrest Nancy Gamo, the accountant of the Guo family’s companies. She was immediately taken to the Senate’s detention facility in its building in Pasay City.
Billions deposited
The arrest orders were issued a day after the Court of Appeals granted the petition of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to freeze the assets of the controversial mayor, her business associates and companies owned by her family.
The appellate court’s freeze order covered Guo’s 36 bank accounts, a helicopter, 12 vehicles and 12 real estate properties.
A total of 90 bank accounts across 14 financial institutions, 27 land titles and other high-value personal properties of Guo and six other individuals, and six companies were also included in the court order.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday said that the AMLC discovered billions of pesos deposited in Guo’s bank accounts before the funds were transferred to the accounts of other individuals and business entities. The bulk of the money, he added, came from various individuals and companies in China.
Besides Guo, also ordered arrested were her sister, Sheila, brothers Seimen and Wesley, and their supposed parents, Chinese nationals Jian Zhong Guo and Lin Wenyi.
Just the first step
Separate arrest warrants were also issued against Dennis Cunanan, who had served as the authorized representative of Hongsheng Gaming Technology Inc., the predecessor of Zun Yuan Technology Inc., which the Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) raided in Bamban last March.
In addition, the Senate panel issued separate summonses to 15 individuals suspected of involvement in Lucky South 99 Outsourcing Inc., which operated a Pogo hub in Porac, Pampanga.
With the issuance of the orders, Hontiveros said that Guo and the other individuals would be compelled to appear in their next hearing on July 29.
“The issuance of the arrest order is only the first step to make Mayor Alice Guo, or Guo Hua Ping, accountable to our laws,” Hontiveros said, using Guo’s alleged real name.
“With the numerous lies and possible crimes committed by (Guo) and the others involved in Pogos, this is not merely procedural,” she added.
Hontiveros advised Guo and the others to surface and cooperate with the Senate’s investigation, which was triggered by reports of human trafficking, prostitution, murder, kidnapping and torture allegedly committed on orders of Pogo bosses, many of them fugitive Chinese nationals.
“Going into hiding won’t bury the truth,” Hontiveros said.
Suspension, graft case
Guo was suspended by the Ombudsman late in May following a graft complaint from the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
She and 13 other respondents were named in the criminal complaint of qualified human trafficking filed by PAOCC in the Department of Justice.
Escudero said the arrest orders were issued against Guo and the others for “unduly refusing to appear, despite due notice, at the hearing” of Hontiveros’ panel.
He said that their absence was “delaying, impeding and obstructing” the ongoing Senate probe into the web of criminal activities linked to Pogos.