MANILA – The legal counsel of Alice Guo denied that the suspended Bamban, Tarlac mayor is the same as the Chinese passport holder Guo Hua Ping that Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian revealed on Tuesday.
According to Atty. Stephen David, there are many people named “Guo Hua Ping” and urged the senator to bring his documents to the proper forum and present his evidence.
“Kung meron silang matibay na ebidensya na they are one and the same, eh di ipresinta nila sa proper forum para masagot namin. Kasi mahirap sumagot sa mga publicity na ganoon eh,” David said in an interview with GMA’s Unang Balita on Wednesday.
Gatchalian said on Tuesday that a certain Guo Hua Ping, who has great resemblance with the controversial mayor, entered the Philippines on January 12, 2003 based on the documents he gathered from the Immigration and Board of Investments (BOI).
“Alice Guo might be Guo Ha Ping who entered the Philippines on January 12, 2003 when she was 13 years old. Her real birth date is on August 31, 1990,” Gatchalian said in a statement.
“Guo Hua Ping’s registered mother under the SIRV (Special Investors Resident Visa) is Lin Wenyi,” he added.
Mayor Alice Guo, who’s being investigated by authorities for her suspected ties to Philippine offshore gaming operators, earlier told senators that her mother left her in her father’s care after giving birth.
She said her biological mother, whom she identified as Amelia Leal Guo, was a maid who had an affair with her father.
Alice repeatedly said she grew up on a farm when quizzed in a recent Senate hearing about her childhood. She was unable to provide memories of her growing up years despite repeated questioning from senators.
The Office of the Ombudsman recently suspended Guo and two other local officials earlier this month following the administrative complaint filed by Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Guo appealed her suspension and that the complaints filed against her over her alleged links to criminal activities of POGO in her town are “baseless.”
A Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) official, on the other hand, said that they will file “serious” and “non-bailable criminal charges” against Guo in the coming days after finding evidence of her involvement in the illegal POGO operations in Bamban.
According to PAOCC spokesperson Winston John Casio, Guo’s name and signature “are in so many documents” and they also have other pieces of evidence that can pin the controversial mayor further to criminal cases./PN
