SC upholds Senate subpoena vs ex-Bamban mayor Alice Guo

Guo had petitioned the SC to nullify the subpoena issued by the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality during its probe into offshore gaming. The committee, chaired by Sen. Risa Hontiveros, had issued the subpoena after Guo failed to attend the hearings.

Guo argued that the subpoena violated her rights to due process and privacy.

“The SC affirmed that the Senate hearings followed the Constitution and the Senate Rules of Procedure. The SC emphasized that Guo’s rights were not violated and the inquiry was a legitimate exercise of legislative power aimed at protecting the public interest and upholding the law,” the high court said in a statement.

The SC said that it was within the Senate’s right to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation, and that its probe into Bamban’s Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) activities was within its authority.

“Guo was invited as a resource person, not as an accused. The subpoena and  related actions followed the Senate rules. She was informed of the inquiry’s scope and retained her right against self-incrimination, which she chose not to exercise,” the SC added.

Guo had been a public official at the time, the SC explained. As such, public servants have a limited expectation of privacy when it comes to matters relating to national interest.

The SC also reaffirmed the Senate’s right to hold a person in contempt after Guo left the country despite notice of the following hearings, as well as her refusal to answer basic questions.

Information about Guo, such as her birth certificate, Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth, and business records had been essential to the investigation, the Court ruled.

Hontiveros welcomed the decision, saying that it strengthened the Senate’s ability to search for the truth.

“The decision reaffirms what the Constitution clearly provides: that legislative inquiries in aid of legislation—when conducted under our established rules—are a vital tool for accountability and the creation of policies which protect public interest and guard our nation’s sovereignty,” she said in a statement to reporters.

The POGO saga was the biggest scandal of 2024 after Senate hearings eventually revealed that Guo had been elected as a public official despite records showing that she was not a real Filipino.

Senators, including Hontiveros, have suspected her of being a Chinese spy whose real name is Guo Hua Ping.

Under Guo’s term as mayor in Bamban, major POGO scam operations were uncovered, with hundreds of Chinese workers being found in Lucky South 99 and Zun Yuan Technology Inc.

But the Senate’s discoveries did not end at Guo’s identity. The POGO investigations also shed light to the dubious birth records of countless other foreigners, many of them Chinese. — Jean Mangaluz