Alice Guo was a mayor like no other, say her supporters. At Christmas, she would hand out gifts of ham and spaghetti to local people. When school term started, she would give notebooks and bags to children. She wasn’t from a prominent political family, as is often the case in the Philippines, yet she rose to become the first female leader of the town of Bamban in Tarlac province.
On social media, Guo seemed fun and friendly. In a “day in the life” YouTube video, she showed off her white fluffy pomeranian, revealed her preferred shampoo brand and cheerfully told viewers that her favourite colour is pink – her campaign colour.
Under her leadership, the quiet, little-known town of Bamban suddenly seemed to attract investment. A branch of McDonald’s and of the popular Filipino chain Jollibee opened for the first time, and a new supermarket was on its way.
“The town was progressing,” says local resident Juliet Buquiran. “She’s kind and sweet to the children.” Outside her home hangs a sign that reads: “Mayor Alice, We Need You Here in the Town of Bamban.”
Yet Guo is nowhere to be seen. Instead she is at the centre of a scandal that has gripped the Philippines. She is now suspended from her role and being hunted by the authorities while questions about her true identity baffle and captivate the country.
It began in March, when officials from the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) raided a sprawling office compound that stands 100 metres from the municipality building, where the mayor’s office is based. Inside, they found almost 1,000 workers, including victims of human trafficking, and evidence of financial scams. Within the 20-acre compound were luxury villas, expensive cognac and wines, tortoises, high-end cars and a large swimming pool.
Investigators also found a panic room and three underground tunnels – an escape route for those wanting to evade the authorities. It led to a vacant plot owned by Guo, said Winston Casio, spokesperson for the PAOCC.
The tunnels weren’t the only sign pointing to the now suspended mayor. In the compound, investigators found an electricity bill in Guo’s name, while a car parked there was registered as belonging to her.
Guo had owned 50% of Baofu, the compound where the criminal operation was taking place, though she says she had sold it prior to becoming mayor. She has also said she had sold the vehicle that was found at the premises during the raid.
As senators have probed the issue, other questions emerged. There was confusion over Guo’s birth certificate, which was not registered until she was 17 and displayed contradictory information to that of her siblings. A Filipina called Amelia Leal was listed as her mother but appeared not to exist, according to birth records. Her father was listed as Filipino, though Guo stated he was Chinese.
When Guo appeared before senators, she seemed unable to answer questions about her childhood, which she said she spent growing up on a farm in Bamban. Schooling records found by a senator also seemed to contradict her claims about where she was educated.
“We’re puzzled – where did she come from?” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr remarked in May. He knew all the politicians in her province, Tarlac; none of them knew Guo.
Then the election commission found that the fingerprints on her election records matched those of a Chinese citizen. Senator Risa Hontiveros asked at one hearing: “Is this mayor – who was born on a farm, taught by literally one person from kinder to high school then didn’t go to college – a Chinese spy? A big-time money launderer? An enabler of scams and human trafficking? None of the above, one of the above or all of the above?”
Guo has denied wrongdoing and says she is not a spy but a Philippine national who was born as “the lovechild” of a Chinese man and his wife’s helper, who was a Filipina. She was raised in Bamban on the family’s pig farm and homeschooled by a teacher named Rubilyn, she has said.
Guo has stopped attending senate hearings into the matter, with her lawyer saying she had been traumatised by the experience, including the reaction on social media, where her responses have been widely mocked.
The story has erupted at a time when tensions between Beijing and Manila have soared, with the latter repeatedly accusing China of aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea.
Guo is now the subject of a senate arrest warrant due to her non-attendance. The PAOCC has filed human trafficking charges, now under consideration by the office of the prosecutor.
Ruben Balagtas, who lives near Guo’s pig farm, said the senate hearings were painful to watch. “I know she was kind because as mayor she helped a lot of people,” said the local president of the Federation of Senior Citizens’ Association.
Balagtas had known the mayor since she was 14, he said, and she had always donated groceries. “She’s the only one that did good things for the town,” he added.
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He doesn’t know what’s true any more, he said. “We can’t believe she’s capable of that.”
It was information from the Malaysian embassy in Manila that led to the raid at Baofu in March. Embassy staff said a Malaysian man was trapped inside and in danger. The compound was then home to Zun Yuan Technology Incorporated, a Philippine offshore gaming operator, or pogo – a type of online gambling service that caters to customers abroad, primarily in China, where gambling is illegal.
Speaking to the Observer from a facility where he and other freed workers are being held, the man, known by the pseudonym Dylan, explained how he travelled to Bamban in February to visit an old colleague and celebrate the lunar new year. When he arrived at the office complex to meet his friend, he was told he had been sold for 300,000 Philippine pesos and would be required to work, carrying out online scams, for his freedom.
His task was to target Chinese women whose profiles had been listed online by parents looking for son-in-laws. He needed to message and call them, build trust and eventually convince them to invest in an online scam. Bosses set monthly targets for workers; those who did not reach their goals would be physically punished – forced to do hundreds of sit-ups or beaten.
On the day of the raid, Dylan contacted embassy staff, who had tracked his location, to tell them he had been beaten as punishment for not meeting his targets and that he needed to escape urgently. “I sent a photo [of his injuries] to the embassy – I told him I already got tortured,” he said. Officials arrived the same night.
Baofu was hardly discreet. It dwarfs everything in its surroundings. Today it is empty of people and in the custody of the PAOCC, but the price tags for luxury alcohol – whisky priced at thousands of dollars a bottle – can still be seen in the windows of the compound’s shops.
The acting mayor of Bamban, Leonardo Anunciacion, declined to be interviewed but had told local media that his predecessor is a kind person and that Bamban would respect the outcome of the election commission’s probe.
The support Guo had received in Bamban was unsurprising, Casio said. “She has a Robin Hood persona. This is the Philippines – a good number of the people live below poverty level. Here comes a local chief executive who is able to afford to dole out these types of things.”
In the run-up to her election in 2022, Guo flew to a campaign event in her helicopter (black with a pink stripe) while crowds were treated to a huge firework display and DJ set.
Operations like that run at Baofu have proliferated across south-east Asia in recent years. Research by the United States Institute of Peace estimated so-called pig-butchering scams – where victims are gradually lured into making increasing investments – generate $63.9bn a year in global revenue, the vast majority of which ($39bn) is generated in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos alone. In the Philippines, pogos have long been plagued by reports of such criminality, and last month President Marcos Jr announced a ban on the industry, saying “disrespect to our system of laws must stop”.
The scandal in Bamban has also underlined fears about the country’s vulnerability to foreign interference. Senators have warned that a policy that allows individuals to register births belatedly, as in Guo’s case, has been abused by bad actors.
The National Bureau of Investigation recently said it had identified 200 individuals, mostly Chinese nationals, who acquired falsified birth certificates from the civil registry in a single municipality – a document that could allow them to obtain a Philippine passport, or to potentially vote or assimilate themselves into politics.
It’s not only through illegally acquired passports that criminals can evade authorities, but there is also growing concern over the presence of underground clinics offering cosmetic enhancements to those who wish to adopt a new identity. A clinic in Pasay City, in Metro Manila, was raided in May, and two similar facilities are under surveillance.
According to immigration records, Guo has not left the country, Casio said. “We get leads every once in a while. Our military and our police are on her, but we have yet to find her.”
Gou has been spotted in Metro Manila, he added. She is not believed to be in Bamban any more.
For now, in Bamban’s mayor’s office, there are only traces of the former leader: plastic chairs, a toaster oven and a shirt worn by a staff member. All, of course, are pink, her trademark colour.