Who is Alice Guo? Why is this 35-year-old first-term mayor of a “sleepy,” “nondescript” Philippines town, Bamban, who speaks Tagalog with no foreign accent, being accused of being a Chinese agent?
What is Guo’s connection to a Bamban-based online casino, “known locally as a Pogo [Philippine offshore gambling operator],” which law enforcers had discovered in March 2024 “was really a front for a scam centre” in which “202 Chinese nationals and 73 other foreigners…were forced to pose as online lovers”?
Why did the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, whose tenure ended in 2022, maintain close ties to China and allow the Pogos, some of which have been discovered to be “fronts for human trafficking and online scam operations,” to flourish unquestioned?
Why did Alice Guo (shown above) own half of the land “just behind her office” on which the Pogo in question was located? Is her claim that she sold it just before running for mayor accurate? If so, why did she sell it? What about the helicopter and Ford expedition registered in her name, and which she also claims to have sold?
Why was Guo’s birth certificate registered with local authorities only after she was 17?
Are Alice Guo’s answers to questions about her personal and business background “opaque,” as Senator Risa Hontiveros characterized them after a recent senate hearing? As another senator who attended the senate hearing, Sherwin Gatchalian, suggests, is it “hard to believe Bamban Mayor Alice Guo, when her answer to our questions is always ‘I don’t know,’ and she can’t even remember where she lived”?
Does Senator Hontiveros have a sound basis for asking whether the mayor and “those like her with mysterious backgrounds” were “planted in our country so that they will be able to influence Philippine politics”?
Why is the current president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., now also expressing alarm about Guo and saying that “We wonder where she came from, that’s why we are investigating this, together with the Bureau of Immigration, because of the questions about her citizenship”?
Are Alice Guo’s denials to lawmakers, her assertion that she was “not a coddler, not a protector of Pogos,” credible?
Is Guo holding office lawfully, and if not, will she be removed from office? Will President Marcos follow through on his promise to “tighten law enforcement” so that foreign nationals have a harder time infiltrating Philippine government? Is this what happened in the case of Alice Guo?
