Fugitive former mayor accused of Chinese links returns to Philippines, to face Senate
Sep 07, 2024
Manila [Philippines], September 7 : Alice Guo, a former mayor who went on the run after she was accused of links to Chinese organised crime, has returned to the Philippines, where she is expected to face the Senate in connection of the case, Al Jazeera reported.
Guo, dressed in an orange T-shirt with 'detainee' marked on it and wearing a black face mask, touched down in Manila in the early hours of Friday morning.
Philippine media reported that Guo travelled on a chartered jet from Jakarta, where she was arrested for immigration offences earlier this week. She was also accompanied by Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos and Philippine National Police chief, General Rommel Francisco Marbil.
Speaking to media after her arrival, she said she had been the target of death threats. She spent most of the time with her back to the media and looking at the wall.
Abalos promised to provide security for the former mayor but urged her to speak out.
"Disclose all the names in order to serve justice, and so all this ends. That is the only way we can help her," he said.
Guo, the former mayor of Bamban town, fled the country in July and is wanted by the Philippine Senate for failing to appear before a panel investigating her alleged links to Chinese organised crime syndicates running cyberscam operations, as reported by Al Jazeera.
In 2022, Guo became mayor of Bamban town, in Tarlac province, about 100 km (62 miles) north of Manila.
Notably, Guo also has Chinese nationality and goes by the name Guo Hua Ping. She has denied all the allegations against her, terming them "malicious".
According to Rappler, a Philippine media outlet, she was expected to appear before the panel on September 9.
Philippine law enforcement agencies, including the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), have filed several counts of money laundering against Guo and 35 others with the justice department, Al Jazeera reported.
The Senate launched its investigation into Guo in May after a raid on a casino in Bamban uncovered what they said was a scamming centre run on land that she partly owned.
An anticorruption office removed her as mayor in August on the grounds of grave misconduct over her alleged ties to illegal gaming operations in the town.
