The camp of Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Leal Guo on Thursday filed a motion for reconsideration before the Office of the Ombudsman, challenging her six-month preventive suspension.
Guo has been accused of grave misconduct, serious dishonesty, gross neglect of duty and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
Lawyers Stephen David, Nicole Jamilla, and Lorelie Santos from the David & Jamilla Law Offices, who represent Guo, appealed to Ombudsman Samuel Martires to lift the suspension order.
They claimed that the evidence against Guo is weak and lacks substantial proof to support the charges.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) accused Guo and other town officials of their failure to discharge their duties in the issuance of business permits to Zun Yuan Technology, Inc. and its predecessor Hongsheng.
“There is no proof that respondent Guo was motivated by a premeditated, obstinate or deliberate intent of violating the law or any established rule. There is neither proof nor concrete evidence that she used her position to benefit herself or another person,” Guo’s camp argued.
The motion concluded with a plea to immediately lift the suspension order, asserting that Guo should not be held liable for any administrative charges.
The Ombudsman, in a May 31 order, placed Guo under a six-month preventive suspension, along with Business Permit and Licensing Office chief Edwin Ocampo and Municipal Legal Office chief Adenn Sigua.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said there is no need to declare the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) operations a threat to national security.
“We don’t even need to go that far and involve national security,” according to Pimentel.
Pimentel described the POGO industry as something that runs on a “a simply bad and wrong policy” because it targets foreign nationals to gamble online against their own domestic laws.
“They should be banned as a matter of public policy for being against our national interest,” he suggested, noting there is no need to complicate it further.
Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros, chairperson of the Senate Committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality, has been conducting an investigation into the alleged involvement of Guo in the POGO hub that was recently raided in their municipality.
During last Wednesday’s executive session on this controversy and Guo’s role in it, Hontiveros called on the National Security Council (NSC) to recommend to President Marcos the declaration of POGO as a national security threat.
