Alice Guo should be under BI custody —Remulla

For Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) should have custody of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo.

In a press briefing, Remulla said that an immigration case against Guo, also identified by authorities as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping, took “precedence over everything” as this is non-bailable.

“Ang tingin ko, when everything clears up already, it would have to be with Immigration and Immigration would just have to seek our permission to bring her to court every time,” Remulla said.

(In my opinion, once everything settles down, it will have to go through Immigration, and Immigration will need to obtain our permission every time they want to bring her to court.)

“‘Yung fake passport niya, fake passport. Her being an alien actually… trying to pass herself off as a Filipino. I think that’s a very major violation of law,” he later added.

According to Remulla, there is a possible deportation case against Guo.

Guo reportedly left the Philippines in July with her purported siblings, Shiela Guo and Wesley Guo. She was arrested in Indonesia on September 4 and arrived in the Philippines on September 6.

A Tarlac court has issued a commitment order for Guo's detention at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Quezon City.

Senators, however, argue that Guo should be detained at the Senate as they were the first to issue an arrest order against her.

Graft case

Meanwhile, Remulla said the Department of Justice has written to the Office of the Ombudsman on the graft case filed against Guo before a Tarlac court.

He previously said that the case should have been filed before the Sandiganbayan.

“We expect them to respond to our letter very soon. But we also intend to write a letter to the Court Administrator so that all of this confusion would be done away with because we cannot allow these things to happen again,” he said.

“I don’t think we want a conflict of jurisdiction for any person we want tried for different crimes. So dapat ito maging clear (This should be cleared),” he added.

Remulla said he felt discomfort with the filing right from the start as it was commonsensical to think that she had influence in Tarlac.

“It’s commonsensical to think that she would be more influential in that area which has been in her sphere of influence because she’s the mayor in a town in the province where she’s being taken as the detainee,” he said.

“Kaya may discomfort kaagad ako sa simula pa lang tungkol sa bagay na ito (I felt uneasy about this thing from the very start),” he added.—LDF, GMA Integrated News