Senators nix Alice’s exec session appeal

Senators on Tuesday thumbed down the request of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo for an executive session, saying that it would not make any difference.

Senator Risa Hontiveros, who spearheads the Senate investigation into the raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub in Bamban and its alleged link to Guo, said her committee had not found any justification to believe the former local chief executive would provide reliable information even in an executive session.

“Our committee has not seen any reason to believe that Guo Hua Ping will provide us with factual, valuable and reliable information to convince us to agree to an executive session,” said Hontiveros, chair of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality.

Earlier in the day, Guo’s lawyer, Stephen David, renewed his client’s request for an executive session, where she could freely answer the senators’ questions.

“She only has a very, very simple request. If the Senate wants to pursue their investigation in aid of legislation, they can get all the information they want from Alice Guo, it’s simple, she wants an executive session,” David said in a television interview.

Hontiveros said that Guo’s persistent denial of her Chinese nationality, despite evidence from the National Bureau of Investigation confirming that she is not a Filipino citizen, was insulting.

“She still can’t admit that she’s a Chinese national and that she was born in China, even when evidence was presented to her face,” the senator said.

“It’s insulting that she keeps insisting she’s Filipino,” she added.

During Monday’s Senate hearing, Guo maintained that she is a Filipino with the name Alice Leal Guo, which earned the ire of the lawmakers questioning her.

Guo insisted on her Filipino nationality, prompting the lawmakers to cite her for contempt again.

The NBI earlier confirmed that Guo’s fingerprints matched those of Guo Hua Ping, a Chinese national.

Hontiveros said Guo must first be truthful about her identity in their next hearing before they can consider her request for an executive session.

“If she cannot even tell the truth about her identity, why should we believe anything else that comes out of her mouth?” she said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada said there was no assurance that Guo would be truthful to them behind closed doors.

“What difference does it make if she talks in an open session as against a proceeding conducted behind closed doors? Alice Guo testified falsely before us, telling us a tall tale about her circumstances and practically everything we asked her in the previous Senate hearings,” Estrada said in a separate statement.