Philippine senator seeks ouster of mayor probed over citizenship
MANILA – A Philippine senator is calling for the removal of a town’s mayor suspected of being a Chinese national, possibly violating a law that requires local citizenship for all elected officials.
Senator Risa Hontiveros said the National Bureau of Investigation found that fingerprints of Ms Alice Guo – who was elected mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac province north of Manila in 2022 – matched with those of a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping.
The head of the investigation bureau has confirmed that fingerprint match in a GMA News report, citing the agency’s database.
“She is a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen to facilitate crimes,” Ms Hontiveros, an opposition senator, said in a June 27 statement.
The call for the mayor to step down comes at a time of heightened tensions between Manila and Beijing with the two countries’ militaries clashing repeatedly over contested territory in the South China Sea.
Ms Guo’s lawyer Stephen David said they have not examined the fingerprint results. He had earlier denied any relation between Ms Alice Guo and Ms Guo Hua Ping.
Ms Guo, in testimonies before the Senate that’s been investigating an online gaming operation in Bamban since May, maintained that she is a Filipino citizen with a Philippine passport.
Ms Guo said she grew up on a farm with a Chinese father, abandoned by her Filipino mother when she was a baby, so her birth was only registered when she was 17 years old.
The mayor has been suspended from her post as she faces scrutiny over her nationality and alleged links to her town’s China-centric online casinos, locally known as Philippine offshore gaming operators or Pogo.
She has also repeatedly denied links to alleged illegal operations at these casinos.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said in May that little was known about Ms Alice Guo and asked for further investigation into her.
Ms Guo’s case raises questions about how the Philippines implements its rules, particularly on citizenship and the screening of election candidates.
The issue also puts online gaming, which boomed in the Philippines during the presidency of Mr Rodrigo Duterte who built closer ties with Beijing, back on the spotlight.
The Chinese embassy in Manila had called for the ban of these casinos as they could be a hotbed of human trafficking and money laundering.
The Philippine gaming agency, however, said that licensed Pogo operators should not be demonised, calling for intensified operations against underground scam syndicates. BLOOMBERG