{"id":454467,"date":"2024-05-19T05:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/blog\/2024\/05\/19\/philippine-town-mayor-accused-of-being-a-chinese-spy-no-one-knows-where-she-came-from\/"},"modified":"2024-05-19T05:15:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T05:15:00","slug":"philippine-town-mayor-accused-of-being-a-chinese-spy-no-one-knows-where-she-came-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/blog\/2024\/05\/19\/philippine-town-mayor-accused-of-being-a-chinese-spy-no-one-knows-where-she-came-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippine Town Mayor Accused Of Being A Chinese Spy: &#8221;No One Knows Where She Came From&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" id=\"ins_storybody\"><!-- \n\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" class=\"sp-cn ins_storybody\" id=\"ins_storybody\">--><\/p>\n<div class=\"ins_instory_dv\">\n<div class=\"ins_instory_dv_cont\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Philippine Town Mayor Accused Of Being A Chinese Spy: ''No One Knows Where She Came From''\" alt=\"Philippine Town Mayor Accused Of Being A Chinese Spy: ''No One Knows Where She Came From''\" id=\"story_image_main\" src=\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2024-05\/693b379o_alice-leal-guo_625x300_19_May_24.jpg\"\/><\/div>\n<p class=\"ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b\">Little is known about her background, which is unusual in rural Philippines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Alice Leal Guo, the mayor of a small town in the Philippines, is currently being investigated due to suspicions about her citizenship, with some suggesting she might be an undercover agent of China. During a Senate hearing, the\u00a035-year-old mayor failed to provide details about her early life and background, fuelling suspicions about her nationality and links to a Philippine offshore gaming operator.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to <em><a class=\"sp_lnk2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c8vzd429zmdo\">BBC<\/a><\/em>, law enforcers recently discovered that an online casino &#8211; known locally as a POGO &#8211; in her town was a front for a scam centre. POGOs are online gaming firms that cater to foreign customers, especially nationals from China, where gambling is illegal. These businesses flourished during the tenure of Rodrigo Duterte, whose presidency, which ended in 2022, was marked by close ties to China.<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"Component-Component\" datatype=\"p\">&#8221;Is she, along with others like her who have\u00a0<em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component-1\">mahiwaga<\/em>\u00a0[mysterious] backgrounds, an asset inserted by China into our government to have a heavy influence in Philippine politics?&#8221; Senator Risa Hontiveros asked during a press conference on May 8.<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"Component-Component\" datatype=\"p\">Little is known about her background, which is unusual in rural Philippines. Her family name, Guo, is also not among the common family names of Filipinos with Chinese lineage.\u00a0During the hearing, she also gave vague answers about her background, including basic personal questions about her family, school and similar facts, raising suspicions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"Component-Component\" datatype=\"p\">Ms Guo admitted that her birth certificate was registered with local authorities only when she turned 17. When asked the reason for this, she said this was because she was born in a house, not in a hospital or clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"Component-Component\" datatype=\"p\">She further said she was home-schooled exclusively inside the family compound, but could not remember the name of her home school organisation and names of teachers except one.\u00a0She said her father is Filipino, but in business records, her father was identified as a Chinese citizen.<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"Component-Component\" datatype=\"p\">Senator Hontiveros described her as someone who &#8221;figuratively came out of nowhere and afterwards became mayor&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"Component-Component\" datatype=\"p\">Meanwhile, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Junior told journalists that he supported the probe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;I know all the politicians from Tarlac [province], no one knows her. So, we are wondering where she came from. We don&#8217;t know. That&#8217;s why an investigation is really needed,&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will tighten the enforcement of the law. The laws are there, the problem is that some people think these people can bring money, or they will take bribes,&#8221; he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, Ms Guo\u00a0has maintained she is a Philippine citizen and denied her involvement in unlawful gaming.\u00a0She could be charged with perjury if it was proved she was not a Filipino citizen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/world-news\/philippine-town-mayor-accused-of-being-a-chinese-spy-no-one-knows-where-she-came-from-5696116\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Little is known about her background, which is unusual in rural Philippines. Alice Leal Guo, the mayor of a small town in the Philippines, is currently being investigated due to suspicions about her citizenship, with some suggesting she might be an undercover agent of China. During a Senate hearing, the\u00a035-year-old mayor failed to provide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":454468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[527258,527262,527261,129314,527263,527265,527260,527264,527259],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}