Guo’s purported ‘mother’ may not exist at all, says PSA official
Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo during the resumption of Senate probe on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. —Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines — Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo’s conflicting stories about her identity fueled more questions on her citizenship after an official of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) told senators on Wednesday that her supposed Filipino birth mother may be fictitious.
At the resumption of the Senate hearing on the Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) activities in her town, Guo maintained that she had never met her biological mother and that she only came to know her name from the birth certificate that her father had shown her in 2005.
READ: Hontiveros flags Bamban Mayor Alice Guo’s ‘ties’ to criminals
As she had mentioned in a television interview, the mayor said she was the love child of her mother, a certain Amelia Leal, who was supposedly the housekeeper of her father, Jian Zhong Guo, a Chinese national who later used Angelito as his Filipino name.
“But I never met her,” Guo said in response to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian’s question.
“My mother left me with my father and I grew up inside a farm,” she said, adding that she was the only child of her parents.
2 siblings
But Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who has been leading the hearing, noted that her birth certificate showed that Guo’s parents were married and that she had two other siblings.
Citing the documents her office had obtained, the senator said the mayor’s siblings, Sheila and Siemen, both had the middle name Leal, which put into question her claim that her mother had abandoned her after she was born.
“How did your mother leave you after your birth in 1986, but gave birth to your brother Siemen in 1988?” Hontiveros asked.
She said Guo’s birth certificate contradicted her story because her parents were listed as “married” on Oct. 14, 1982.
“How come they were married when you claim that your birth mother is just the housekeeper of your father?” she asked the mayor.
Guo, who visibly looked tense as she struggled with her emotions, reiterated that she did not know the contents of her birth certificate because she did not prepare the document.
“As much as possible, I don’t want to tell you that ‘I did not know.’ But I really don’t know the answers,” Guo told Hontiveros.
‘Riddled with holes’
Hontiveros said the mayor’s replies to several basic questions only bolstered their suspicions that she was involved in Pogo and an “asset” of China trained to infiltrate the Philippine government.
“Your birth certificate is riddled with holes. And if your birth certificate is the basis of your citizenship, then your citizenship is also riddled with holes,” the senator said.
Sen. Raffy Tulfo, who also quizzed the mayor about her birth record, reminded Guo to answer their questions directly after she repeatedly said that she was a “love child.”
‘Public sympathy’
“You are diverting the issue. You are seeking public sympathy by presenting a seemingly sad teleserye story. We know better,” Tulfo said.
Guo’s personal background became more questionable after PSA Legal Director Eliezer Ambatali said there was no official public record regarding the existence of Guo’s mother.
Ambatali said in answer to questions from Gatchalian that they also did not find any document proving that the mayor’s parents were married, as stated in the birth certificates of Guo and her siblings.
“For now, it’s possible, and the possibility is high, that this person doesn’t exist,” Ambatali said, referring to Amelia Leal.
Gatchalian pursued the implications of the PSA official’s statement.
“So, the person does not exist, and that she only existed in the story of her father, right? I want to establish that. But in the PSA records, Angelito Guo and Amelia Leal had no marriage certificate, right?” he asked.
Ambatali agreed, adding that Guo’s birth certificate was replete with “irregularities.”
Gatchalian also pointed out that Guo’s father had declared that he was a Filipino in her birth record, but the mayor herself repeatedly mentioned that he was a foreigner who had a Chinese passport.
“A birth certificate is a basic document to apply for a passport and other public documents, including the certificate of candidacy. If the basic document is irregular, obviously the other documents will also be irregular,” Gatchalian said, adding:
“Like in the case of Mayor Guo. She declared in her certificate of candidacy that she’s a Filipino, but her birth certificate is irregular. We cannot say that she’s really Filipino.”
Kapampangan
Sen. Loren Legarda joined her colleagues in grilling Guo about her citizenship, asking her several times to speak in Kapampangan, the native language in Bamban, and in Fookien, the spoken language in her father’s supposed hometown of Fujian, China.
Legarda also asked her to share some of her childhood memories, to which Guo merely replied that she grew up on her own inside the family’s farm.
But her unresponsive answers only incensed the veteran lawmaker.
‘Convince us’
“If you’re really Chinese and fronting for other people, go back to your country! But if you are a Filipino and you were born here, convince us because we want to be convinced,” Legarda told Guo.
“I’m trying to help you by trying to make you recall about your childhood because you cannot answer like that. It appears to be scripted,” she added.
Speaking with reporters after the five-hour hearing, Guo said: “I’m a Filipino. I’m not a spy.”
Guo said her father was currently in China. Gatchalian said they were considering calling him to the hearing.
