Fugitive ex-mayor accused of Chinese criminal ties is back in the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — Former Philippine Mayor Alice Guo, who is accused of ties to Chinese criminal organizations and laundering more than 100 million pesos ($1.79 million), arrived in Manila on Friday morning after being deported from Indonesia.

Guo, also known as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping, was arrested by Indonesian authorities on Wednesday after she left the Philippines in July. She is wanted by the Philippine Senate after she refused to appear before a congressional investigation into her alleged criminal ties.

Philippine law enforcement agencies, including the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), have filed several money laundering charges against Guo and 35 others with the Department of Justice.

Guo, who says she is a natural-born Filipino citizen, has denied the allegations, calling them malicious. She was deported from Indonesia for violating immigration laws, Jakarta’s immigration office said Thursday.

The former mayor arrived in Manila on a private jet, flanked by Philippine law enforcement officials, including the country’s Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr., who led her handover from Indonesian authorities in Jakarta on Thursday.

“I have received death threats and I am asking for help (from the Philippine authorities),” Guo told a news conference shortly after her arrival in Manila.

Abalos promised to protect Guo, but urged her to reveal the truth. “Reveal all the names to serve justice and that’s how this all ends. That’s the only way we can help her,” he said.

The Senate opened an investigation into Guo in May after a March raid by law enforcement on a casino in the city of Bamban, where she was mayor, revealed what they said was a scam carried out from a building built on land partly owned by Guo.

Guo became mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac province in the northern Philippines in 2022. She ran as a Filipino citizen, but her fingerprints were later found to match those of a Chinese national, Guo Hua Ping said in August, according to the National Bureau of Investigation.

In August, she was ousted as mayor by an anti-corruption agency for serious misconduct over her alleged links to illegal gambling businesses in Bamban.