The non-escape of a V.I.P.

When this column “To prevent another Guo stunt” came out on Aug. 19 this year, Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros announced later that day in a privilege speech that dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Leal Guo had already gone out of the country a month ago. Initially denied by concerned government agencies, the shocking truth subsequently came out that mayor Guo, along with her siblings and a cohort, had indeed flown the coop.   

Thus, summons from various government agencies and a warrant of arrest from the Senate could not be served because mayor Guo was already out of the country.

Using our journalists’ lingo, Sen. Hontiveros “scooped” the news on everybody, including President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM). The latest stunt of mayor Alice Guo, a.k.a. Guo Hua Ping, was to escape right under the noses of government authorities. Still, top officials of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its attached agency, the Bureau of Immigration (BI), were still in denial even after Hontiveros’ “confidential sources” leaked out Guo’s escape.

PBBM certainly was not happy upon learning that Guo was really able to leave the country without anyone in government knowing it. So much so, PBBM vowed in anger that “heads will roll” for those who were sleeping on the job or worse, assisted her. When Indonesian police authorities finally arrested Guo in Jakarta last Sept. 3, PBBM further warned that those accountable for her escape will not only be dismissed from their respective offices but will also face criminal charges. 

Sen. Hontiveros committee’s probe into the reported human trafficking jointly with Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian’s committee looking into Guo’s alleged links with the illegal Philippine online gaming operators (POGOs)-cum-scamming hubs now shifted to her controversial surreptitious escape along with other co-accused, including two of her siblings, in this on-going legislative inquiry.

 Guo succeeded in getting out of the country undetected by our border control authorities while she was undergoing high-profile Senate investigations on her alleged illegal activities and facing probable criminal cases. How could Guo sneak out of the country without obvious help from her enablers within and outside the Philippine government?   

It would possibly be for dereliction of duty and negligence, willful or otherwise, for those concerned government functionaries. Catching the crooks in government is the easy part. Only conviction and actually sending them to jail is the best solution to putting a lid on the twin evils of graft and corruption. But catching the big fishes – so to speak – at the highest levels of the bureaucracy could give the chilling effect to public servants from taking bribes or making illegal money as a side job. 

Even Guo’s own battery of lawyers led by Stephen David insisted their client was still in the Philippines and repeatedly claimed they were allegedly in constant telephone conversations with her. Now, her lawyers are also facing possible censure for obstruction of justice or perjury at the least.

As subsequent events showed, Alice Guo, along with sister Shiela and brother Wesley and Cassandra Ong who is a suspected partner of Alice at the POGO in Porac, Pampanga, slipped out of our country without a hitch. The story of how they got out has yet to unfold. For now, the only known detail was that they all entered Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on July 18.

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) later made public a photo of a woman who looked like Alice Guo sighted at a Kuala Lumpur airport last July 21. Other details of their escape route were supplied following the arrest of her purported sister Shiela and Ong in Batam in Indonesia last Aug. 20 and deportation to the Philippines on the same date.

The whereabouts of the dismissed mayor and her brother Wesley were still unknown then. But coordination by Immigration chief Norman Tansingco supposedly with his fellow border control authorities pointed to the possible location of the ex-mayor somewhere in Jakarta.

At the resumption of the joint Senate public hearing last Aug. 27, Shiela testified how they fled the Philippines via a “small boat,” then allegedly transferred to and boarded a bigger ship in the middle of the sea. At the same Senate hearing, she also revealed Alice is “not her biological sister.”

Incidentally, Shiela carried a Chinese passport valid up to 2030 along with her Philippine passport when she got arrested with Ong. On top of other criminal charges, Shiela faces a deportation case for undesirability and misrepresentation as a Filipino national after she was found owning a valid Chinese passport under the name Zhang Mier. Dual citizenship is not allowed in China. 

Shiela now faces becoming stateless because she automatically lost her Chinese citizenship if she acquired Filipino citizenship that enabled her to get a Philippine passport. From Google search, Articles 4 and 5 of the Nationality Law of the People’s Republic of China provided that persons of Chinese descent, regardless of whether they were born in China (including Hong Kong), are usually considered to be Chinese citizens. Chinese citizenship is acquired primarily through ancestry, not place of birth.

On Sept. 1, or three days before she got arrested in Jakarta, Alice Guo’s chief lead counsel revealed his client purportedly “wanted” to surrender but was fearing for her life. This is now the play of Guo when she appeared smiling and happy to be turned over to Philippine custody. 

Unfortunately, Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos and Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Rommel Francisco Marbil got played to get photographed with the giggly Alice Guo, who made cutesy “peace” handsigns. Pointing to death threats allegedly from the “Chinese mafia,” Guo’s lawyers succeeded in convincing the local court of Capas, Tarlac to grant custody to the PNP for her safety and protection.

With the convoy of PNP personnel as her “security blanket,” Alice Guo will reappear before the Senate hearing on POGO today. 

Alice Guo’s non-escape, albeit short-lived, should prod the government to restrict V.I.Ps’, as in very important prisoner/politicians, access to backdoor exits in the Philippines.

With a convoy of PNP personnel as her “security blanket,” mayor Guo will reappear before the Senate hearing on POGO today.