Philippines Senate orders arrest of mayor amid Chinese crime network allegations and identity controversy News
Ramon FVelasquez, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Philippines Senate orders arrest of mayor amid Chinese crime network allegations and identity controversy

The Philippine Senate ordered the arrest of a small-town mayor on Thursday who failed to attend hearings probing her suspected connections to Chinese criminal networks. The Senate president signed the arrest order, authorizing the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms to detain Mayor Alice Guo, also known as Guo Hua Ping, after she missed a second consecutive hearing on Wednesday, citing stress as her reason.

Guo’s small farm town of Bamban in the Central Luzon area of the Philippines was thrust into the national spotlight in March when authorities raided a local Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) compound, uncovering scams allegedly operating out of a facility part-owned by the mayor. The discovery prompted the Senate to launch a vigorous investigation in May, in which officials rescued hundreds of trafficked workers and seized equipment used for scamming from the facility.

The POGO sector emerged in the Philippines in 2016 and has since experienced explosive growth, with operators leveraging the country’s liberal gaming laws to serve customers in China, where gambling remains prohibited.

Her family background also came under scrutiny after the March operation. Guo has insisted that she is a Filipino citizen but the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said her fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national who entered the country as a teenager. The Senate reposted Senator Win Gatchalian’s video on a local news network disputing Mayor Guo’s educational records. The video claims that Guo was born in Fujian, China, citing an alien certificate of registration from when she entered the Philippines at age 14. Senator Gatchalian also cited the NBI’s findings during a Senate hearing showing Guo’s fingerprints matching those of Guo Hua Ping, who possesses a Chinese birth certificate and details about her parentage.

The Chinese embassy has not commented on the issue. Guo has staunchly denied any criminal affiliations and asserts that she is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines. In a letter to the Senate, she claims to be the target of “malicious accusations.”

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed perplexity about Guo’s background to reporters in May, stating, “No one knows her. We wonder where she came from. That’s why we are investigating this, in collaboration with the Bureau of Immigration, to address the uncertainties surrounding her citizenship.”

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