(UPDATE) THE Department of Justice (DoJ) said it has enough evidence and testimonies to build a strong case of qualified human trafficking against Alice Guo and her co-accused.
Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty, who heads the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, said on Sunday the case would be filed this week before the appropriate court.
Ty said the charges stem from the complaint lodged by the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission.
To be charged with the dismissed mayor are her business partners, including Huang Zhiyang, the Chinese national believed to be the “boss of all bosses” of illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs).
In a related development, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla has secured the Supreme Court’s approval to transfer to Metro Manila the cases filed before the Capas Regional Trial Court Branch 66 against several foreign nationals who were arrested during the raid of the Zun Yuan Technology, a POGO site in Bamban, Tarlac.
The site was raided on March 13, and several foreigners were arrested.
Guo was mayor of Bamban before she was dismissed by the Department of the Interior and Local Government for having links with Zun Yuan Technology.
In his request to Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, Remulla said the high-profile cases affect national security and general policies.
He also said he wanted to prevent the case from being influenced by local biases.
Sen. JV Ejercito, meanwhile, said he believes Alice Guo is a pawn of an international syndicate that has been running illegal POGOs.
Ejercito expressed support for an executive session so Guo could name the mastermind behind the criminal activities in the Tarlac POGO.
The Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality of Sen. Risa Hontiveros will resume on Tuesday public hearings on Guo’s involvement in the Tarlac POGO hub.
“I think she is merely a pawn in a bigger web of international syndicate,” Ejercito said in a radio interview on Sunday.
The senator said he wanted to know who helped Guo enter Philippine politics and how she started her political career in Tarlac.
“What if China is trying to embed [Chinese in our political system]?” Ejercito asked in Filipino.
“I guess we need to be patient with her,” he said. “Guo will not be able to answer the senators’ questions properly about the details of her escape from the country if she was in panic.”
Ejercito said Guo had been cooperative and even wrote on paper the name of the person who allegedly helped her flee in a yacht.
Alice claimed that she and her sister transferred to a bigger ship and eventually reached Sabah, Malaysia, on a smaller boat.
The Guo sisters were arrested separately a month later in Indonesia.
Be the first to comment