Gatchalian worried Alice Guo may have already left PH

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian —Senate PRIB

MANILA, Philippines — While there are no Bureau of Immigration (BI) records showing that suspended Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo, has left the country, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian is not discounting the possibility that she might have already done so using a Chinese passport.

“Based on our information from the Bureau of Immigration, she’s still here because we checked if Guo Hua Ping has already left the country, they haven’t found such a record so far,” Gatchalian said in a radio interview.

“So if she’ll pass through our airports, seaports, she would be detected. But we know that there are other ways to escape,” he added.

“I believe that she has a Filipino passport and she also has a Chinese passport. Maybe, just maybe, she used her Chinese passport to leave,” he said.

Citing immigration records, Gatchalian said Guo used Chinese and Philippine passports from 2008 to 2011.

House inquiry pushed

In the House of Representatives, Assistant Majority Leader and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Adiong on Wednesday sought a congressional inquiry into the “alarming” proliferation of falsified birth certificates and Philippine passports issued to foreigners, mostly Chinese nationals.

The lawmaker filed House Resolution No. 1802, which would direct the House committees on local government and justice to jointly look into the spread of the documents, which should only be issued to Filipinos but end up to foreign nationals.

Adiong cited several hearings conducted by the House committee on public accounts where it was discovered that huge tracts of land were bought by foreigners, particularly Chinese nationals, who used falsified birth certificates and Philippine passports obtained through false statements submitted to local civil registrars.