Embattled Philippine mayor Alice Guo explains evasiveness over mysterious past: 'I'm not a spy, I'm a love child'
In a plot twist seemingly ripped from a Philippine telenovela, an embattled mystery mayor accused of being a Chinese spy has claimed she was evasive about her life to hide the "painful" truth that she was an abandoned illegitimate child.
Alice Leal Guo, 38, mayor of Bamban town, on Monday addressed the media amid mounting controversy over her background, insisting in Tagalog: "I'm not a spy. I am a Filipino, I love my country." In a public statement, she added: "I am a love child of my beloved father and our housekeeper [kasambahay]."
National security fears in the Philippines are mounting with Manila locked in a months-long territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.
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The suspicions have been fuelled by recent cases of Chinese nationals discovered to be on an auxiliary roster of the Philippine coastguard, a surge in Chinese students in the northern province of Cagayan and a wiretapping saga centred on a top Filipino admiral, casting the spotlight on military personnel with ties to China.
Guo, who won the 2022 election on her first attempt and with no previous political experience, wrote in her certificate of candidacy that she was born in the town of Tarlac in the province of the same name. In an interview with TV Patrol, she admitted she was an abandoned child of a domestic helper and a man who was a Chinese citizen. Guo, 38, has yet to reveal the nationality of her mother.
"I couldn't do it [tell the Senate] because for me it was too private; I couldn't bear telling others that I was left by my own mother,"she said.
Doubts about Guo's background and citizenship emerged during a May 7 Senate hearing that linked her to Zun Yuan Technology Corp, a Philippine offshore gaming operator, or Pogo, based in a huge glittering compound in Bamban, right behind the mayor's building. The compound was leased to the Pogo by Baofu Land Development Inc., the latter in which Guo said she had a 50 per cent stake but divested it before running for elections.
The Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission's senior technical adviser Winston John R. Casio has said the "big boss" of Zun Yuan is Chinese criminal Huang Zhiyang.
Law enforcers were tipped off by a Vietnamese man who had escaped from the compound in February and said he was being forcibly employed to work as a scammer. Agents who raided the huge complex this March said the Pogo was involved in human trafficking, online romance and cryptocurrency scams and possibly hacking and surveillance of government agencies.
Authorities discovered hundreds of Filipinos and Chinese at the compound, as well as nationals from Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Rwanda, Taiwan and Kyrgyzstan.
They also found villas, tunnels, panic rooms and vaults containing documents, among them papers that linked Guo to the Pogo's operations.
Summoned to the Senate hearing, the mayor denied knowing anything about the business. Guo was vague in explaining aspects of her life: she only got her birth certificate when she was 17, had no hospital record of her birth because she was born at home, and could not recall where that was.
She had no diplomas and education documents because, she claimed, she had been home-schooled in a pig farm and could not identify the homeschool provider.
Exasperated, Senator Risa Hontiveros initially described Guo as someone who "came out of nowhere". "Is she an asset inserted by China into our government to have a heavy influence in Philippine politics?"
In an update on Tuesday (May 21), Hontiveros said in a statement that "Guo has ties with convicted Zhang Ruijin and Baoying Lin who were arrested in Singapore in the country's 'largest money laundering case'. Guo was associated with Zhang and Lin in her former company Baofu."
Days after the hearing, the election commission revealed Guo had only registered to be a voter the year before she ran for mayor. When This Week in Asia checked the official website of Bamban, the page "about the mayor" turned out to be blank.
As news of the mystery surrounding Guo spread, politicians and officials scrambled to distance themselves from her. Among them was President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, who told reporters on May 16: "I know all the politicians in Tarlac, and no one knows her. We're wondering where she came from. How did this happen?"
Hours after Marcos Jnr's comments, Guo posted pictures of herself and Marcos Jnr on her Facebook page, to which the president scornfully told reporters: "That proves nothing, you know how many pictures I take during the campaign? Maybe a thousand a day. So it doesn't really mean anything."
Local government secretary Benjamin Abalos said on May 20 he had ordered the National Police Commission to investigate if Guo's control of officers in her town should be removed. Abalos also said he had recommended to the Office of the Ombudsman that Guo be suspended for grave misconduct and negligence of duty.
The office of the solicitor general said it had formed a team to investigate the accusations and see if Guo had the right to hold public office. The Commission on Election said she could be charged with perjury if proven she was not a citizen.
In her interview, Guo admitted to supporting the Pogo before she became a mayor. She claimed she now wanted to ban such operations from her town, and that she had never stepped inside the Pogo's offices nor was she in partnership with Zun Yuan.
Guo added she was not affected by the Pogos scandal, but what "hurt" her were charges she was a "spy, an asset of China and a sleeper agent". She said she had been "traumatised" by the questioning in the Senate but still hoped to find her mother some day.
Guo's revelations did not explain how her name was found on the Pogo's receipts related to electricity and manpower, or why a vehicle in the compound was registered to her name, as well as her ownership of a helicopter.
The Baofu complex has also been linked to other illegal Pogo operations. Last year, it was raided by authorities but Guo had not expressed concern about the incident.
On Monday morning, supporters of the mayor held a rally in front of her office. Guo said in her interview she had no intention of resigning and planned to run for re-election next year.
A follow-up Senate hearing on the issue has been set for Wednesday.
Filipino human rights lawyer Chel Diokno posted on social media platform X: "The allegations against Mayor Guo are serious, as it is the height of impunity to use public office for organised crime. Authorities must leave no stone unturned to ensure accountability. The people, especially the residents of Bamban, Tarlac, deserve to know the truth."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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