There can be no doubt that Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Leal Guo is a Chinese national, not a Philippine citizen as she claims.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) confirmed last week that the fingerprints of Guo and a Chinese businesswoman named Guo Hua Ping were a perfect match.
Senator Risa Hontiveros released the finding, saying “they are the fingerprints of one and the same person. This confirms what I have suspected all along. Mayor Alice is a fake Filipino. She is a Chinese national.”
An early photo of the businesswoman also had the same features as the mayor.
In her testimonies before the Senate, Guo made a number of claims that cast doubts on her supposed Philippine citizenship. Among others, she claimed that she was home schooled, thereby accounting for her lack of educational records. She also said she was raised in a farm, which is why her birth certificate was not recorded until she was 17.
Guo also claimed that she was a love child of a domestic helper who worked for her father, whom she admitted was a Chinese national.
In one of her bank accounts, the Bamban mayor named Wen Yi Lin Leal as her mother’s maiden name. But in her testimony before the Senate, she said her mother’s name was Amelia.
“There is very strong evidence to remove Mayor Alice from public office,” according to Hontiveros.
Through her lawyers, Guo’s camp said she would answer all the allegations against her at the proper forum, in a court of law and not before the Senate.
Her lawyers refused to confirm or deny that Alice Guo was also Guo Hua Ping.
Speaking in the vernacular, lawyer Stephen David lambasted what he said was his client’s being tried by publicity.
“They have yet to present evidence, but my client is already convicted,” said David.
He also raised the possibility that the documents cited by the NBI may have been manipulated.
Guo’s questionable background led the Nationalist People’s Coalition to remove Guo as member of the party, as ordered by its president Tito Sotto.
Guo’s problems continued to mount in recent weeks, as she was also ordered suspended by the Department of Interior and Local Government.
The Presidential Anti-Organize Crime Committee is also preparing human trafficking raps against her, this time for her role in hiring hundreds of mostly Chinese workers in the Philippine Overseas Gaming Operator or POGO based in her property in Bamban town.
She initially said she only leased out her family’s property, but her Chinese name appears as one of the owners of the Bamban-based POGO, said to be one of the biggest in the country.
While hundreds were found to be working there without government permits, an even larger number is suspected to have escaped.
The manager of the POGO was arrested in Davao City last week as she was attempting to flee the country.
By the middle of last week when the Senate continued its probe on POGO operations in Tarlac, Guo told the lawmakers through her lawyers that she could not attend as she was “sick and stressed.”
As a result of her absence, the Senate issued a subpoena for Guo and some of her family members to attend, or else face arrest.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority endorsed to the Office of the Solicitor General the cancellation of Guo’s certificate of live birth.
Under a worst-case scenario, Guo faces deportation from the country, but not before serving whatever prison sentence a court judges she must face.
The government will also take control of her properties, easily worth hundreds of millions of pesos.
