AMID questions on the nationality of Bamban Mayor Alice Guo, Binondo-based Chinese businessmen made a categorical claim on her citizenship – she’s a Chinese national.
In full page advertisements which appeared in Chinese newspapers a day after the May 2022 national and local elections, Guo also received congratulatory remarks from various organizations from Chaodai, a village in Jinjiang City, Fujian province in China.
The advertisements, written in Chinese language but translated in English called her as the “First Chinese Mayor in the Philippines.”
As Guo’s nationality comes under scrutiny, President Ferdinand Marcos himself cited the urgent need for a deeper probe to determine the real identity of the neophyte politician who won the 2022 mayoralty race in Bamban, Tarlac on her first crack.
According to the President, Guo is not even known among local leaders – “Paano siya tumakbo ng mayor? Kilala ko lahat ng mga taga-Tarlac na politiko, walang may kilala sa kanya. Kaya nagtataka kami kung saan nanggaling ito? Bakit ganito ito? Hindi namin malaman,” the President told local reporters during his Cagayan de Oro visit.
“Kaya kailangan talagang imbestigahan. So, kasabay ng sa Bureau of Immigration, pati… Siguro may magkukwestyon na ng kanyang citizenship. Yun lahat iimbestigahan natin kasabay ng hearing na ginagawa ng Senado,” added Marcos in reference to the congressional probe being conducted by the Senate Committee on Women and Children.
In an online interview, Solomon Yuyitung in his capacity as publisher of a Chinese Commercial News, he confirmed that full page advertisements appeared in various Chinese newspapers in Binondo – but not on their business daily.
“Congratulations to Guo Jian, a Xiangxian of Chaodai, for becoming the first female mayor in the Philippines and the first Chinese mayor!,” reads the translated text of the full page ad which came out in another Chinese paper referred to as World News.
The ad further reads “Guo is a businesswoman and a novice politician” who “was elected the town’s first female mayor and the first Chinese-American mayor in the town’s history with 16,503 votes.”
Guo gained prominence after law enforcement agencies raided a POGO hub where pieces of evidence linking her to its operation were recovered.
The raid also led to the arrest of 875 POGO workers including 432 Chinese nationals.
Guo was accused of backing the operation of the gambling site as lawmakers questioned how such businesses in a local town thrived without being detected.
On top of illegally operating a gambling site, prominent politicians suspect that the raided POGO hub could have been used as a satellite facility for Chinese spies, even as Sen. Risa Hontiveros floated the idea that Guo could possibly be a “Chinese agent.” (ANGEL F. JOSE)
