RTC has exclusive jurisdiction over Guo’s cases: Ombudsman

THE Ombudsman yesterday said the Capas, Tarlac Regional Trial Court has exclusive jurisdiction over cases filed against dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo, adding “the warrant of arrest issued by the Senate cannot be superior to the warrant issued by the RTC.”

Ombudsman Samuel Martires said the alternative for the Senate panel conducting an investigation on Guo is to request the Capas RTC to allow the defendant to be presented before a congressional inquiry whenever her presence is required.

The next hearing of the Senate Committee on Women is on September 17.

In seeking the transfer of Guo’s graft cases to the Sandiganbayan, lawmakers are challenging a law that Congress itself passed less than 10 years ago.

Republic Act No. 10660, signed into law in 2015, restructured the Sandiganbayan to speed up proceedings and reduce what was then a backlog of close to 3,000 cases.

Section 2 of the statute provides that “the Regional Trial Court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction where the information: (a) does not allege any damage to the government or any bribery; or (b) alleges damage to the government or bribery arising from the same or closely related transactions or acts in an amount not exceeding One million pesos (P1,000,000.00).

“Subject to the rules promulgated by the Supreme Court, the cases falling under the jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court under this section shall be tried in a judicial region other than where the official holds office.”

Since the cases against Guo did not involve bribery or public funds or properties that would constitute damage to the government, they squarely fell within the jurisdiction of the RTC.

The only question left for the Office of the Ombudsman to decide when it filed the cases last August 29 was to determine whether or not there was still a need to take the cases outside the judicial region of Tarlac.

Martires explained that if Guo was still the incumbent mayor of Bamban, the cases against her would have gone either to RTCs in Region 1 (Ilocos Region) or RTCs in the National Capital Region (NCR or Metro Manila) to comply with the requirement in RA 10660 that charges against a sitting government official “shall be tried