Ong defies Congress, chooses jail to testifying

(UPDATES) CASSANDRA Li Ong, the alleged business partner of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo, would rather go to jail than appear before a congressional inquiry, her lawyer said Saturday, setting the stage for a test of the wills with senators who want to question her.

“Ms. Ong can’t take it anymore,” said her counsel Ferdinand Topacio in a media briefing on Saturday.

“She said if the lawmakers want to send her to jail, she’ll just go to jail instead of appearing again in a legislative hearing and be subjected to humiliation, bullying or being ridiculed in front of millions of people,” he said. “Even in the Women’s Correctional, she will accept it. She no longer wants to testify.”

Cassandra Li Ong PHOTO FROM HOUSE OF THE REPRESENTATIVES

But Senate President Francis Escudero said Ong, an incorporator of an illegal offshore gaming company in Porac, Pampanga, must attend the Senate hearing scheduled for Monday, September 9, as the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality chaired by Sen. Risa Honitiveros wants to question her as among the 34 people named in a money laundering complaint, along with Guo.

Ong, Alice Guo and Sheila Guo were among those compelled to be physically present during the next hearing of the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality on Monday.

Escudero said failing to attend the Senate hearings would violate Article 150 of the Revised Penal Code, which punishes disobedience to a summons issued by Congress.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian added that it was not for Ong to decide whether to go to jail instead of attending congressional probes.

“She also cannot continually use her alleged ‘mental illness’ as an excuse to avoid responding to congressional invitations to address the accusations against her,” Gatchalian said.

The senator noted that Ong is accused of serious crimes, including transnational crimes such as money laundering.

Topacio said Ong made the appeal to the Senate where she has been invited to appear on Monday.

“Maybe the senators can see Ms. Ong’s plight. She is begging the senators to just put her in jail and file charges against her. That is her appeal,” he said.

Topacio said this was not his advice.

“That is her own appeal. Whether you (senators) will take that appeal or not, that is up to you because you have the power, but we are appealing to your better nature; do not subject her anymore to these indignities,” he said.

Topacio said the rules of Congress state that resource persons should be treated with dignity and respect.

According to one of Topacio’s associates, lawyer Raph Andrada, Ong is currently suffering from “mental health problems” and experiencing several breakdowns due to being “traumatized” during the hearings at the House of Representatives.

“This trauma is obviously manifesting itself physically. She was already confined (at the hospital) because of this condition,” said Andrada.

Ong has been appearing as a resource person in a hearing at the House regarding illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) since she was repatriated back to the Philippines in August following her arrest, together with Sheila Guo, Alice’s sister, in Indonesia.

Senators earlier requested Congress to allow Ong to attend their investigation into the alleged escape of Alice Guo and her party.

The request was granted by the four House committees, which are jointly investigating POGO-related crimes.

But Topacio said he has his own ax to grind against members of Congress.

He said during one of the hearings, several congressmen did not allow him to approach Ong.

“They accused me (of) being the one answering the questions for my client just because they cannot get the answers that they want,” Topacio said.

“They said that I was teaching Ms. Ong what she should answer. Of course, that is the role of a counsel. They should look at their own rules. The counsel should advise the client. They said we were invoking her right to remain silent upon my advice. The right to be silent is in the Constitution,” he added.

The lawyer pointed out that the right to remain silent is absolute.

“You cannot force, frighten, bully, bamboozle or dupe a person to talk about the commission of a crime. Isolating a person from her counsel is foul,” he said.

Topacio also issued a challenge to Rep. Dan Fernandez, who he said talked about many things during one of the hearings that he failed to attend, which is very unseemly for a public official.

“Representative Fernandez told my client not to listen to her lawyer because he just wants to lengthen the case so he can get all her money. Is that right? By that alone, you are undermining the right to counsel,” he said.

He said if Fernandez really believes in what he is telling his client, he should not “hide behind the cloak of parliamentary privilege.”

“Let us go outside where you do not have parliamentary privilege, somewhere that is neutral, repeat what you told my client and let’s see what happens,” Topacio said, addressing Fernandez.

He also pointed out that nothing concrete came out of the 11 hearings that he has attended that were conducted by the House of Representatives.

“Congress is not a court; they should stick to legislative work,” said Topacio.

He expressed hope that a piece of legislation will be created out of the hearings that they are now doing on POGOs.

“But I do not see what legislation is going to come out based on the questions they are asking my client, such as, ‘Is Wesley Guo your boyfriend?'” Topacio said.

But in an interview with The Manila Times, quadcom co-chairman and House Public Accounts panel chairman Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano said Topacio should tread carefully, as he could be violating the internal rules of the House for undue interference and might be cited in contempt.

Lawyer Ferdinand Topacio (center) shows an undated photo of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (center), together with Rainer Tiu (right) during a press conference in Quezon City on Sept. 7, 2024. Tiu is allegedly ‘king’ of the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs). Topacio is the lawyer of dismissed town mayor Alice Guo, who has since been deported from Indonesia where she was arrested and has been placed under the custody of the Philippine National Police (PNP). Guo has been linked to illegal POGO operations in her hometown. She is facing multiple charges of money laundering and of fraud, misrepresenting herself as a Filipino. Malacañang has yet to respond to Topacio’s disclosure. PHOTOS BY JOHN ORVEN VERDOTE

Paduano also questioned the intention of Topacio in announcing that Ong wanted to be jailed instead of face legislators.

“If he did that announcement in public, as a counsel, if it is addressed to Congress, he has a problem! Why announce it in public and not in a hearing and let Cassandra Ong speak about it?” Paduano said.

House Human Rights Committee Chairman and Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante said he believes that Topacio is not authorized to speak on behalf of Ong with regard to her plight.

“He’s not the authorized person to say that. He is just (the) lawyer (for Ong)…. Who’s he to make that decision?” Abante told The Manila Times in a Viber message.

Abante added that his heart would go out to Ong “if only in the beginning, instead of listening to her lawyer, she just spoke the truth.”

Paduano said that they aim to invite Li Ong again in the fifth hearing of the Committee scheduled tentatively on Thursday, but they will also invite her attending physicians to check on her condition as her testimony was cut short due to her condition.

Also on Saturday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) said Alice Guo could become a state witness if the investigations into POGO illegal activities of POGOs lead to the scheme’s mastermind. But right now, she stands as “the most guilty” in the illegal gambling operations in her hometown in Tarlac and is disqualified from becoming a state witness, DoJ spokesman Jose Dominic Clavano IV said.

“But if we see that there is someone higher up involved in the illegal activities of POGO, then she may become a state witness because she will no longer be the most guilty; there is a mastermind,” he added.

However, Clavano said that making Guo a state witness also depends on the willingness of the dismissed mayor to cooperate with law enforcement and the authorities.

Clavano said the DoJ expects to finish investigations on public and private individuals who may have aided Guo in fleeing the Philippines this month.

with RED MENDOZA