OSG asks Manila court to remove Alice Guo as Bamban mayor

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) on Monday filed a quo warranto petition against suspended Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo, which may result in her removal from public office.

In the 45-page petition, the OSG asked the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 34 to declare Guo’s proclamation as Bamban mayor null and void and for her to be ousted.

The court was also asked to declare Guo as ineligible to hold the office of the mayor of Bamban and to declare her to have committed acts that warrant her forfeiture.

“This morning,” Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said in a message to reporters as he shared the first page of the petition.

In the petition filed with the RTC, the respondent was indicated as “Guo Hua Ping a.k.a. Alice Leal Guo.”

“Guo Hua Ping a.k.a Alice Leal Guo is unlawfully holding the position and illegally exercising the duties and responsibilities of the office of the mayor of Bamban, Tarlac,” Guevarra said when asked about the main grounds of the petition.

He argued that Guo is a Chinese national and is ineligible to run for office.

“As abundantly shown by various government records, respondent Guo Hua Ping a.k.a Alice Leal Guo is the daughter of two Chinese citizens, Lin Wenyi and Guo Jian Zhong,” the OSG said.

The OSG further said that Guo’s case does not involve naturalization proceedings, and argued that Guo committed acts that constitute a ground for the forfeiture of her office.

“More specifically, she has committed acts of serious dishonesty which, under the local government code, warrant her removal from office,” it said.

According to the petition, serious dishonesty is a ground for forfeiture from public office under Section 1(b), Rule 66 of the Rules of Court, in relation to Section 60 of Republic Act 7160.

Aside from this, the OSG said Guo’s repeated misrepresentations in official government documents “are tainted with moral depravity.”

The office noted that Guo repeatedly stated in records that she was a Filipino citizen and maintained under oath that she was a Filipino. It said she also misrepresented the true identity of her parents.

“Certainly, the foregoing misrepresentations cannot be ignored as mere innocent lapses of memory,” it said. 

GMA News Online has sought comment from Guo’s camp but has yet to receive a response as of posting time.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in June confirmed that Guo and Chinese passport holder Guo Hua Ping have the same fingerprints.

TIMELINE: The plots and twists of the 'Alice Guo' probe

In early July, the OSG filed a petition seeking to cancel Guo’s birth certificate. Guevarra earlier said if cancelled, Guo would lose her most important defense evidence about her identity.

He also said the petition to cancel Guo's birth certificate and the quo warranto petition would complement each other. 

Guo, for her part, has denied the allegations against her.

It was Senator Sherwin Gatchalian who first raised suspicions that Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping were the same person, citing documents from the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Bureau of Immigration.

Gatchalian earlier presented records from the BOI of the Guo family's application for a Special Investors Resident Visa (SIRV).

The documents showed one Guo Hua Ping entering the Philippines on January 12, 2003.

"Alice Guo might be Guo Hua Ping who entered the Philippines on January 12, 2003, when she was 13 years old. Her real birth date is on Aug 31, 1990," Gatchalian said.

The documents were uncovered after Guo failed to provide details of her childhood and background to the Senate and after senators scrutinized her birth certificate, which was registered late.

Apart from her identity, Guo is also being scrutinized in relation to the raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub in her locality in March.

After Guo failed to repeatedly attend the inquiry, the Senate committee issued an arrest order against her and others.

Guo, along with 13 others, is also facing a human trafficking complaint before the Department of Justice in connection to the raided hub, where over 800 Filipinos and foreigners were rescued.  —KBK, GMA Integrated News