Bamban Mayor Alice Guo | PHOTO: Official facebook page Sen. Risa Hontiveros
President Marcos on Thursday expressed suspicions about the true origins of Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo, while the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) launched an investigation regarding her legal right to hold public office, amid questions about her alleged links to China.
Interviewed in Cagayan de Oro City, the President said no one among Tarlac’s local politicians had heard of Guo prior to her winning the 2022 elections.
“We’ve been investigating them. That’s why we caught them. We raided the hub in Bamban and we saw the documents. We then questioned if these documents are real, and how was she able to run for mayor?” he told reporters.
The President, who has been in politics since the early 1990s, went on: “I know all the politicians in Tarlac, and no one knows her. We’re wondering where she came from. How did this happen? We don’t know.”
He expressed support for the Senate investigation on Guo and her alleged connections to an offshore gaming hub, as well as the OSG’s move to create a task force to authenticate Guo’s credentials.
“This should really be investigated, with the Bureau of Immigration. Maybe someone will question her citizenship. We will investigate all of that, along with the Senate hearings,” the President said.
Quo warranto
Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra told reporters that the OSG task force would determine “if there is good reason to believe that the subject is unlawfully holding or exercising public office.”
“If it could be established by proof, the OSG will commence quo warranto proceedings to oust the person concerned,” he said.
Questions were first raised about Guo’s citizenship during a Senate inquiry after Sen. Risa Hontiveros noted that her birth was only registered in 2013, or 17 years after she was supposedly born in 1986.
The Bamban mayor also admitted during the May 7 hearing that she had no hospital birth records since her mother gave birth to her on the family farm.
Her baffling responses to senators’ questions prompted speculation that Guo was a “Chinese asset” sent to infiltrate the government amid a simmering maritime conflict between Beijing and Manila in the West Philippine Sea.
Based on her statement of contributions and expenditures submitted to the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Guo declared Tarlac, Tarlac, as her birthplace and signed declarations of her Filipino citizenship and of not being an immigrant from another country.
‘Usurps’ office
In a Viber message to the Inquirer, Guevarra said the OSG acted motu proprio, or on its own initiative, in starting the investigation on Guo’s case.
Formed on May 14, the task force is in the fact-finding stage, “gathering relevant information” from the Comelec, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Education, the Philippine Statistics Authority, and the Bureau of Immigration, among other government agencies, he said.
Under the Rules of Court, a quo warranto petition is an action taken against a person who “usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises a public office, position or franchise.”
Guevarra explained that only the OSG may commence quo warranto proceedings on behalf of the state.
A notable example of a quo warranto proceeding in the Philippines was the case of former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who was expelled from office in 2018, after the Supreme Court granted a quo warranto petition that challenged the validity of her appointment.
In the May 7 hearing, senators took turns grilling Guo, who admitted that she owned half of Baofu Land Development Inc., the registered owner of a 7.9-hectare property in Anupul village, a vast Philippine offshore gaming operator or Pogo complex raided by authorities in March.
Based on the Local Government Code of 1991, the qualifications for a municipal mayor in the Philippines are the following: a Filipino citizen, at least 21 years old on Election Day, a registered voter in the municipality where he/she intends to be elected, a resident of the municipality where he/she intends to be elected for at least one year before the election, and the ability to read and write in Filipino or any other local language or dialect.
In the 2022 polls, Guo ran as an independent candidate and defeated Anupul barangay chair Joey Salting in a tight race, garnering 16,503 votes against her opponent’s 16,035.
Also on Thursday, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian welcomed the OSG’s initiative to look into Guo’s background.
“It is good that the Solicitor General is taking a proactive approach to settle this hanging issue surrounding the position of Mayor Guo,” Gatchalian told reporters.
“We will await for the results of the determination from the SolGen,” he added.
Gatchalian also called on elected officials to “strictly adhere to the requirements of the law in seeking an elective position by truthfully declaring legal status.”