Alice Guo —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac province, and a Chinese girl who entered the country 21 years ago were allegedly the same person, two senators leading the Senate probe of online gaming scams said on Thursday, citing findings by the National Bureau of Investigation indicating that she was a “fake Filipino.”
According to the NBI, the fingerprints of the mayor matched that of a Chinese passport holder, Guo Hua Ping, who entered the Philippines as a 13-year-old on Jan. 12, 2003, using a special investor resident visa (SIRV), Sen. Risa Hontiveros said.
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“This confirms what I have suspected all along,” Hontiveros said in a statement. “‘Mayor Alice’ is a fake Filipino—or should I say, Guo Hua Ping. She is a Chinese national masquerading as Filipino citizen to facilitate crimes being committed by Pogo (Philippine offshore gaming operator).”
Hontiveros said that the mayor’s allegedly bogus Filipino nationality was a “big insult” to the voters of Bamban as well as to government institutions and to every Filipino.
‘Strongest’ basis
The matching fingerprints were the “strongest” evidence that the Office of the Solicitor General could use to expedite a quo warranto case against Guo to strip her of her government position.
“She should be held accountable for all the crimes she and her Pogo hub have committed,” said the chair of the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality, which is conducting an inquiry into Pogo operations.
In his statement, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said, “Guo Hua Ping’s mockery of Philippine laws should not be taken lightly, and she should be brought to the bar of justice as soon as possible.”
“People like her who assume that being a Filipino can just be bought should be severely punished. We will not stop until there is no more ‘Alice Guo’ who can escape from our laws,” he said.
The two senators did not provide details of the documents where the NBI obtained the fingerprints.
The NBI has not responded to the Inquirer’s request for comment.
Probe goes on
Hontiveros said their Pogo investigation does not end with the latest NBI findings.
“Guo Hua Ping, soon, we will know the full extent of your deception. Our Senate investigation will continue. We will dig deeper and locate the systemic roots of our Pogo problem,” she said.
During the Senate hearing on Wednesday, Hontiveros said documents showed that the NBI had separately issued clearances to two persons, both named “Alice Leal Guo.”
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She said the NBI documents revealed that the two Guos shared the same birth date—July 12, 1986—and that they were both born in Tarlac.
One of the documents had a photo of Guo, while the other carried the picture of a person who looked completely different from the controversial mayor.
“It appears that the name ‘Alice Guo’ was stolen from a Filipino. Aside from the citizenship, the identity of a Filipino was also stolen,” Hontiveros said at the end of the four-hour proceedings on Wednesday.
“Guo Hua Ping is a Chinese citizen … who managed to fraudulently obtain the status of a Filipino citizen, run for mayor, and gain the trust and friendship of very powerful and influential Filipinos, some of (whom) seem to include politicians,” she added.
SIRV, passport
Gatchalian had earlier presented possible proof of Guo’s real identity.
He said he had obtained a copy of the SIRV from the Board of Investments and the Bureau of Immigration that would support suspicions that Guo was not a Filipino national, contrary to her claim.
The document, which the senator shared with Senate reporters, had a picture of a young woman who he said looked like the controversial Bamban mayor.
Guo’s lawyer, Stephen David, said in an earlier radio interview that his client denied that she was that Chinese girl and that she had nothing to do with that person.
The senator was also able to secure a photocopy of Guo’s Chinese passport. It showed that the passport holder was a female student born in Fujian, China, on Aug 31, 1990.
The passport, which was issued on April 3, 1999, in Fujian, had a photo of a much younger girl.
Gatchalian had also suspected that Lin Wenyi, a Chinese national whose name appeared as an incorporator of several companies owned by Guo’s family, could be her biological mother.
During earlier hearings by Hontiveros’ committee, Alice Guo said her mother worked as a helper for her father. After she was born, she said that her birth mother abandoned her.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Anti-Money Laundering Council Director Emmet Rodion Manantan said that Guo had declared “several variations” of her mother’s name in her bank accounts, such as “Winnie Leal,” “Wenny Leal Lin,” “Weny Lin Leal,” “Winnie C. Leal” and “Amelia Lim Leal.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, whose committee on public order and dangerous drugs earlier recommended gradual phaseout instead of an immediate ban on Pogos, said he now supported calls for a total ban on Pogos, given the “increasing threat against national security.”
Trafficking complaint
Last week, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission filed a qualified human trafficking charge against Alice Guo and 13 other people, including incorporators of Pogo company Zun Yuan Technology, located in a 7.9-hectare property owned by Baofu Land Development Inc. The property was partly owned by the mayor.
The charge sheet, which also referred to Guo as “Guo Hua Ping,” linked her and the other respondents to an alleged “grand conspiracy to commit labor trafficking” of around 500 foreign Pogo workers who were rescued during a raid on the Baofu compound on March 13.