'Ibig sabihin, they are the fingerprints of one and the same person,' says Senator Risa Hontiveros
MANILA, Philippines – The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has confirmed that the fingerprints of suspended Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping – the Chinese woman who is suspected to be the true identity of the local official – match.
Senator Risa Hontiveros, who had requested the NBI to compare the fingerprints, announced this in a statement on Thursday, June 27.
“Mayor Alice, walang sikretong hindi nabubunyag (there’s no secret that can be kept hidden). Indeed, the NBI has confirmed that the fingerprints of Mayor Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping match. Ibig sabihin (This means), they are the fingerprints of one and the same person,” the senator said.
“This confirms what I have suspected all along. Pekeng Pilipino si Mayor Alice (Mayor Alice is a fake Filipino) – or should I say, Guo Hua Ping. She is a Chinese national masquerading as Filipino citizen to facilitate crimes being committed by POGO,” she added.
Hontiveros said that the NBI finding is the “strongest evidence” to strip Guo of her elective post. She also urged the Office of the Solicitor General “to expedite its filing of a quo warranto case against” Guo.
“Dapat mapanagot siya sa lahat ng krimen na ginawa niya at ng kanyang POGO hub (She should be held accountable for all the crimes that she and her POGO hub had committed),” she said.
A day earlier, Hontiveros said that she had requested the NBI “the biometrics data of both Guo Hua Ping and Alice Guo, looking to compare their fingerprints.”
At the June 26 hearing of the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality on the raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) facility in Bamban, the senator presented the NBI clearance of a woman whose name is Alice Leal Guo, with the same birth province and birthday as the Bamban mayor, but with a different photo, suggesting that the mayor had “stolen” the identity of a Filipino, the senator said.
During the hearing of the Senate panel on June 18, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian presented documents that, he said, bolstered allegations that the embattled mayor may be Chinese and not Filipino, contrary to her claim. His cited documents provided by the Board of Investments from the Guo family’s application for a Special Investor’s Resident Visa (SIRV) and the Bureau of Immigration.
In the document, Guo Hua Ping entered the Philippines on January 12, 2003, and was born on August 31, 1990. In the mayor’s supposed birth certificate, her birthday is listed as July 12, 1986. Her registered mother under the SIRV is Lin Wen Yi.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Wednesday that it had moved to cancel Guo’s certificate of live birth which, if approved, would mean stripping her of her Filipino citizenship. It cited the “irregularity of the process,” of her delayed birth registration as reason for the move.
Hontiveros’ panel had subpoenaed Guo, some of her family members, and other resource persons who snubbed the June 26 hearing. – Rappler.com