The Valenzuela Regional Trial Court (RTC) will now handle the graft and corruption case against dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo, Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino announced Friday.

This after the case was transferred from the Capas, Tarlac RTC, which earlier issued the arrest order against Guo, who returned to the country last week after hiding in Indonesia.

Citing Section 2 of Republic Act 10660, Capas, Tarlac Branch 109 Presiding Judge Sarah Vedaña-de los Santos endorsed the case to Valenzuela.

Under the law, if the accused is a public official, he or she should be tried in judicial regions “other than where the official holds office.”

“Upon further research and consideration, based on the foregoing premises, let the present cases be returned to the executive judge of RTC Capas, Ronald Leo T. Haban, for his appropriate action in accordance with OCA Circular 10-2024,” the order read.

Public officials

OCA Circular 10-2024 defines public officials classified as Grade 27 and higher such as city mayors, vice mayors, members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, city treasurers, assessors, engineers and other city department heads.

“[W]here the case is filed in a multiple sala court, the records of the case shall be returned to the executive judge, who shall forward to the same nearest RTC of the nearest judicial region,” the order said.

Guo is at the center of the Senate investigation into the raided POGO hub in Bamban which is allegedly connected to her.

Upon her arrival from Indonesia last week, Guo was placed in the custody of the Philippine National Police at the PNP custodial center in Quezon City in accordance with the warrant of arrest issued by the Tarlac RTC.

This was despite the warrant of arrest issued by the Senate panel on women against her in June for her repeated failure to attend its hearing.

Meanwhile, Guo has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to dismissed the material representation complaint filed against her.

In her counter-affidavit filed Thursday, 12 September, Guo urged the Comelec to junk the complaint stemming from the certificate of candidacy (CoC) she filed for the May 2022 polls.

Guo maintained that when she filed her CoC, she made declarations on her personal information “on the basis of the legitimate documents in her possession” that were issued by the Philippine government.

Thus, she said, “she had not made any false material representation.”

Guo added the complainant failed to dispute her birth certificate, which states that she is a Filipino citizen.

Her citizenship is being questioned under the Office of the Solicitor General’s quo warranto petition.

Guo also questioned the validity of the evidence presented to supposedly prove that she and Hua Ping Lin Guo are “one and the same person.”

“This is an unwarranted and unmerited conclusion considering that there was no opportunity given to me to authenticate the examination results, the procedure on how they came about the results, the source documents that were in the examination, as well as the produced documents,” Guo said.

She added that she was not given a chance to check, verify and validate “if there was no room for alteration and manipulation in the said examination and documentation.”

Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said the counter-affidavit filed by Guo’s camp was a recognition of the jurisdiction of the poll body.

“Now we can terminate the preliminary investigation and proceed to the resolution of the controversy,” Garcia said.

SC weighs in

The Supreme Court yesterday said that despite there being no formal request from either party involved, the transfer of Guo’s graft case from Capas town to Valenzuela City was in accordance with an SC directive.

This is stated in a longstanding circular issued by the SC’s Office of the Court Administrator (OCA).

Supreme Court spokesperson Atty. Camille Sue Mae Ting said OCA Circular 10-2024, titled “Uniform Guidelines Concerning Cases Where the Accused or One of the Accused is a Local Official,” provided the legal basis for the transfer.