Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday, June 28 said Bamban Mayor Alice Leal Guo would have to serve time in the Philippines in the event she is convicted of the crimes that have been filed against her by the government.

Hontiveros said she believes Guo will have to face serious consequences for her actions especially now that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has found that the mayor and a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping have the same fingerprints.

The senator pointed out that if she has been proven to have a stolen an identity and used that to run for public office, then Guo would be meted a penalty for such criminal activities. 

“At the same time, she committed identity theft of a Filipino to cover up the POGO companies on their different criminal activities. So that’s a very big issue,” Hontiveros said in Filipino during an online interview.

“So that, whatever be the outcome of any of these charges and actual cases, if she is convicted, she will have to serve time here in the Philippines,” she added.

Hontiveros said it is one of the things she sought assurance for from the Department of Justice (DOJ) particularly from Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty, head of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT). 

“That even if she is meted the penalty of deportation, once she is convicted on any of those cases, she will first have to serve her sentence here in the Philippines,” Hontiveros said.

“So, in other words, deporting her won’t become a free pass and allow her to face the consequences of her actions to whatever country she would be deported. She will have to face the consequences once the courts are able to prove she is involved and the crimes she committed and the laws she violated in our country,” she explained. 

“I call now on the Office of the Solicitor General to expedite the filing of their quo waranto case against Mayor Alice Guo. She should be held criminally liable for the things she did and the crimes that were done in that POGO hub under her watch and with her active participation here,”  she said.

“But of course, this revelation is not the end. So, Guo Hua Ping, sooner than later, we will uncover the rest of your deceptions. We will know and we will make known to the Filipino public the extent of this deception,” she further warned the mayor.

Hontiveros also said she believes it is high-time the whole government, particularly certain departments and agencies would use the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality’s independent probe as an opportunity to further investigate other similar cases of “Alice Guos” in the country.

“I think this serves as an opening for the whole government, our investigation against POGO,” she said.

“If the modus operandi in the Bamban POGO hub is to place a mayor or protecting one mayor in the POGO hub and under false pretenses as a Filipino citizen, then maybe that should be an angle they can check with other POGO hubs,” Hontiveros said.