📷 bomboradyo.com
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said that Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo might be a “security risk” to the country over numerous questions floating about the citizenship of the government official.
In an ambush interview in Cagayan de Oro City on Thursday, Marcos considered Guo’s mysterious background a red flag due to her dubious legal status.
Guo’s identity has been questioned over the past few days amid the Senate inquiry into alleged illegal operations at the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub in Bamban.
In a Senate committee hearing last Tuesday, May 7, Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros pressed Guo about her background to confirm her nationality, especially since Guo became the first female mayor of Bamban after winning the 2022 elections with 16,503 votes.
Guo said throughout the hearing that she couldn’t recall anything about her life, including her birthplace, the reason her birth was only recorded 17 years later, or the homeschool program she used up until high school.
Her inability to answer basic questions about her life made Hontiveros question if the Bamban mayor was a Chinese national on a mission to spy on local politics in the Philippines.
“Kilala ko lahat ng mga tiga-Tarlac na politiko, walang may kilala sa kanya. Kaya nagtataka kami kung saan nanggaling ito…. Hindi namin malaman,” Marcos told reporters.
Asked whether this is considered as security risk, Marcos said: “Palagay ko. Hindi natin malaman kaya kailangan talaga nating pag-aralan nang mabuti.”
“Kaya kailangan talagang imbestigahan. So, kasabay ng sa Bureau of Immigration, pati…. Siguro may magkukuwestiyon na ng kanyang citizenship. ‘Yun lahat iimbestigahan natin ‘yun kasama ang imbestigasyon, mga hearing na ginagawa ng Senado,” he added.
The Office of the Solicitor General, for its part, said that it has already started a probe into Guo’s background.
Better monitoring protocols will be used, the President said, to guarantee that such instances would be prevented in the future. (TCSP)
