The Office of the Solicitor General will finalize next week the cases the government will file against suspended Mayor Alice L. Guo of Bamban, Tarlac, Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said on Friday.
Guevarra stressed that among the legal actions being considered by the OSG against Guo are a quo warranto case and the cancellation of her birth certificate as recommended by the Philippine Statistics Authority.
As this developed, the Commission on Elections said it is considering filing a case against Guo after the NBI confirmed that her fingerprints matched that of Guo Hua Ping, a Chinese national.
But former Sen. Leila de Lima said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) can enforce a legal warrantless arrest through the Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Guo for stealing another person’s identity and violating immigration laws.
Speaking as erstwhile Justice Secretary, De Lima said the DOJ may initially treat this case as a simple immigration case, noting that the department may pursue immediate legal remedies instead of waiting for the proper filing of criminal cases against Guo before the courts.
“It would also be then unnecessary to still file a quo warranto case against her if the purpose solely is to put her immediately under preventive detention and stop her from performing her spurious position as mayor after the lapse of her current preventive suspension period,” she explained.
A quo warranto case is a special civil action against a person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises a public office without lawful authority to act.
A favorable ruling on the quo warranto case would strip Guo of her mayoralty post. It may even lead to the filing of other cases.
“The OSG team will meet next week to finalize the intended legal action based on all the available evidence,” Guevarra said.
On the cancellation of the birth certificate, Guevarra cited the finding of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that Guo’s fingerprints matched those of Chinese national Guo Hua Ping.
“This evidence will be extremely useful,” the Solicitor General said.
Guo has been ordered preventively suspended for six months by the Office of the Ombudsman which found strong evidence on the administrative complaints filed by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
The mayor is also facing a non-bailable qualified human trafficking complaint before the Department of Justice (DOJ) over the operation of Zun Yuan Technology Center, a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) that was raided by government authorities in Bamban town.
De Lima recommended that Guo be placed at the immigration deportation facilities pending her trial for the multiple criminal offenses.
“Since Bamban mayor ‘Alice Guo’ is not the real Alice Leal Guo, but a 2003 Chinese child immigrant identified as Guo Hua Ping, and who merely stole the identity of the real Alice Leal Guo, the immediate legal remedy against her is a warrantless arrest by the BI,” according to the former senator.
Guo can be deported to China where she belongs only after service of sentence, if convicted, De Lima said.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “Legal actions vs Guo to be finalized by next week—SolGen.”