Atty. Elmer Galicia. —Screenshot from Senate of the Philippines/YouTube
MANILA, Philippines — The lawyer who notarized dismissed Bamban Mayor Alice Guo’s supposed counteraffidavit in the qualified human trafficking case is facing legal troubles of his own after the National Bureau of Investigation filed criminal complaints against him in the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday.
NBI Director Jaime Santiago said complaints of perjury, falsification and obstruction of justice were filed against Guo and lawyer Elmer Galicia, plus four alleged accomplices: Dante Catapay, Cheryl Medina, Catherine Salazar and Geraldine Pepito.
Palmer Mallari, head of the NBI’s Task Force Alice Guo, said that his team collected sample signatures of the former mayor from original documents at the Bamban municipal hall for comparison.
READ: DOJ to hold all Guo’s lawyers accountable for counter-affidavit conflict
“After the examination… it was proven that the sample signatures appearing on all those documents as compared to the supposed signature appearing on the counteraffidavit were not written by one and the same person,” Mallari said in a press briefing at the DOJ.
READ: Galicia may face suspension if proven lying about meeting Alice Guo
The task force considered lifting fingerprints from the counteraffidavit to verify whether the document was handled by Guo herself.
“But we did not go as far as submitting that for determination because the examination conducted by the [Questioned Documents Division] was sufficient, stating that the signature there is not Alice Guo’s,” Mallari added.
The NBI’s findings followed Guo’s admission under oath during a Senate hearing on Sept. 17 that she signed the last page of her counteraffidavit before leaving the country undetected by immigration officials in late July.
The purported counteraffidavit was notarized on Aug. 14. Guo was arrested in Indonesia on Sept. 4 and later deported to the Philippines.
Galicia, who was at the Sept. 17 Senate hearing, claimed that he was a “victim” and invoked his right against self-incrimination when senators asked him about notarizing the document without Guo’s presence.
Guo’s counteraffidavit was submitted as part of her motion asking the DOJ to reopen its preliminary investigation of the qualified human trafficking complaint filed against her by the Philippine National Police and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission in June.
Guo snubbed three DOJ preliminary investigations on July 5, July 22 and Aug. 6. State prosecutors denied her request to extend the deadline for filing a counteraffidavit and submitted the complaint for resolution on Aug. 6.
However, through her lawyers, Guo filed a motion to reopen the case with a counteraffidavit notarized by Galicia, but she was already out of the country then.
The motion was dismissed, but according to Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Ty, “because of this counteraffidavit the case was delayed.”
Following the revelation of Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Aug. 19 that Guo had already fled the country, Galicia appeared at the DOJ on Aug. 20 accompanied by Bulacan Provincial Prosecutor Sonny Ocampo and Caloocan City Prosecutor Darwin Cañete, who are part of the panel handling the Bamban Pogo case.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with the NBI, Ocampo said Galicia volunteered details about his last sighting of Guo.
Nighttime encounter
He said that around 7 p.m. on Aug. 14, Galicia arrived at his office in Barangay Tungkong Mangga, San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan, and saw a Toyota Land Cruiser parked outside—with Guo inside.
When asked if Galicia boarded the vehicle to notarize Guo’s document, Ocampo replied: “He did not say, but he said he saw her through the (car) window.”
It was unclear why the same law firm that prepared Guo’s affidavit did not provide the notary public for her.
In addition to Guo and Galicia, the complaints filed by the NBI also implicated Guo’s staff, Pepito and Salazar; Catapay, who allegedly assisted in notarizing her counteraffidavit; and Medina, the executive secretary of Sual, Pangasinan Mayor Liseldo “Dong” Calugay, who allegedly sought Catapay’s help in finding a notary public.
Al Jazeera documentary
Regarding Guo’s other pending cases, Santiago said that the NBI was continuing its investigation of Guo’s possible connections, especially following the allegations by a “discarded Chinese spy” imprisoned in Thailand, who linked Guo to Chinese espionage operations in the Philippines.
During a recent inquiry by the House of Representatives’ quad committee, lawmakers scrutinized Guo after an Al Jazeera documentary was aired about She Zhijiang, a Chinese tycoon who is in a Thai jail awaiting extradition to China, who claimed to have a dossier on alleged Chinese spies, including Guo, who was identified as “Guo Hua Ping.”
The NBI reported in July that Guo had the same fingerprints as Guo Hua Ping, a Chinese citizen who entered the country as a young girl, making them one and the same person.
Santiago said that the NBI was coordinating with foreign counterparts as part of its investigation and was considering interviewing She himself.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, said that the DOJ was taking She’s espionage allegations “seriously.”
Guo is facing criminal cases for qualified human trafficking at the Pasig Regional Trial Court (RTC) and graft and corruption charges at the Valenzuela RTC.
She pleaded not guilty to the qualified human trafficking charge. The arraignment at the Valenzuela RTC had been postponed.
Guo also has a quo warranto and birth certificate cancellation cases filed by the Office of the Solicitor General, as well as tax evasion and money laundering complaints still pending resolution in the DOJ.