Fingerprints give away her real identity
By Ashzel Hachero and Raymond Africa
SUSPENDED Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo’s claim that she is a Filipino citizen was shot to pieces yesterday by the National Bureau of Investigation, which said that her fingerprints matched that of Guo Hua Ping, the Chinese girl who entered the country when she was just 13 years old in 2003.
A dactyloscopy report issued by the NBI Forensic and Scientific Service dated June 27, 2024 showed the fingerprints of Guo Hua Ping affixed on the Alien Fingerprint Card retrieved from the agency’s master files dated March 28, 2006 matched the fingerprints of the Bamban mayor on the biometric printout from the NBI Information and Communication Division Technology Division dated March 10, 2021.
(Dactyloscopy, according to a medical dictionary, is an examination of the markings in prints made from the fingertips employed as a method of personal identification.)
“Result of Examination: After a thorough examination and analysis, fingerprints of Guo Hua Ping y Lin and fingerprints of Guo, Alice y Leal were found identical,” the NBI report signed by Alfredo Kahanding, Chief of the Dactyloscopy Division and approved by Jose Doloiras, Assistant Director for Forensic and Scientific Research Service, said.
The NBI said the fingerprints of Guo Hua Ping y Lin and Guo Alice y Leal were “affixed by one and the same person.”
The result of the NBI test proved that Mayor Guo is an impostor, her carefully cultivated persona that catapulted her to the highest local position in an obscure municipality in Tarlac a ploy to deceive the Filipino people in pursuit of something sinister.
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros, who chairs the Committee on Women probing the real identity of Guo, said the NBI findings were a “big insult” to the people of Bamban, government institutions, and the Filipino people, adding this is reason enough for her to be kicked out as municipal mayor.
There was no immediate response from the camp of Mayor Guo, who was slapped with a six-month suspension by the Ombudsman last May 31, as of yesterday.
“Indeed, the NBI has confirmed that the fingerprints of Mayor Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping match. This means that they are the fingerprints of one and the same person,” Hontiveros said, adding the NBI findings confirm “what I have suspected all along” — that Guo is a “fake Filipino.”
“She is a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen to facilitate crime(s) being committed by POGO. This revelation is not the end. Guo Hua Ping, soon, we will know the full extent of your deception. We will continue with our investigations. We will dig deeper and locate the systemic roots of our POGO problems,” Hontiveros said in a mix of Filipino and English.
Hontiveros thanked the NBI for the speedy results of its probe and called on the Office of the Solicitor General to expedite the 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 made accountable for all the crimes she and her POGO hub have committed),” she added.
Last Wednesday, Hontiveros questioned the real identity of the suspended Bamban mayor based on a document from the NBI which showed two Alice Leal Guos having the same birthday, July 12, 1986, and their names having the same spelling. The two also declared Tarlac as their place of birth.
Guo Hua Ping was the name of the daughter listed by Lin Wen Yi, who had been introduced by Mayor Guo as her biological mother, when she applied for a Special Investors Resident Visa after she and Jiang Zhong Guo arrived in the country on January 12, 2003.
The SIRV presented by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian showed the attached picture of Guo Hua Ping looking like Mayor Guo. Records from that SIRV showed that Guo Hua Ping entered the country when she was only 13 years old.
AN ADMISSION
Hontiveros said Mayor Guo practically admitted that Lin Wen Yi was her biological mother when she listed Lin’s name as her mother in some of her bank accounts.
In an interview with radio dyPM, Hontiveros said this was discovered in last Wednesday’s hearing after bank documents secured by the Committee on Women showed that Guo listed the names Winnie Leal, Wennie Leal Lin, Wen Yi Lin, and Wen Yi Lin Leal as her mother.
Hontiveros said the information they gathered about Guo was very confusing at first.
“And for sure, that Lin Weng Yi turns out to be her real mother. To our understanding in at least one bank document, mayor Alice Guo wrote the maiden name of her mother as Lin Wen Yi,” Hontiveros said. “So practically, she admitted who her real mother is and what’s the name of her mother.”
Hontiveros has been leading the investigation into the true identity of Guo after the mayor’s name was seen in several documents related to the raided POGO hub in Bamban last March.
Gatchalian first discovered that a certain Lin Wen Yi could be the biological mother of Mayor Guo based on interviews with residents of Valenzuela City where the Guo family once rented a warehouse.
Gatchalian said Guo used to introduce Lin as her mother who uses the Filipino name “Wennie.”
The Philippine Statistics Authority said it has endorsed to the Office of the Solicitor General the cancellation of Guo’s live birth certificate since it was acquired illegally.
The PSA also said that Guo’s listed parents in her birth certificate — Angelito Guo aka Jian Zhong Guo and Amelia Leal — have no marriage or birth records.
“So, in terms of identification documents here in the Philippines, her parents have none. And to our understanding, Mayor Alice Guo is Guo Hua Ping who is a full Chinese who has parents who are also Chinese,” Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros also said the committee will require Porac Mayor Jaime Capil to attend the next hearing, which has yet to be scheduled, so he can explain why the raided POGO hub in Porac was constructed on agricultural land.
“The mayor did not mention anything that he applied for land conversion. The Department of Agrarian Reform confirmed that the (10-hectare) lot is covered by (an) order for land acquisition and distribution. So, there are qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries. So, the question is, why was the POGO hub constructed there?” she said.
BROADER LIABILITIES
The Justice Department yesterday said the cancellation of the certificate of live birth (COLB) of Mayor Guo could expose her to broader liabilities.
DOJ Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Jose Dominic Clavano said the cancellation of the COLB will not affect the criminal cases filed against Guo.
Last June 21, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and the PNP filed a complaint of human trafficking against Guo before the DOJ over her alleged ties to a POGO hub in Bamban that was raided by authorities last March.
Around 500 workers were rescued in the POGO hub.
“If we find anomalies in her obtaining a fake birth certificate, those involved in issuing it will also be charged. We have seen similar issues in previous raids on POGO operations where fake government-issued IDs were discovered,” Clavano said.
Clavano said the illegal practice of obtaining counterfeit or forged birth certificates could erode public trust in the government.
“We have to make sure that these institutions like the PSA or any other agency or department that issues IDs are protected from these types of anomalies and irregularities because it could affect the credibility of our institutions,” he explained.
Last Wednesday, Solicitor General Medardo Guevarra said his office is “seriously considering” the recommendation of the Philippine Statistics Authority to cancel the COLB of Guo.
PSA Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande earlier told the Senate that the agency has no power to cancel a COLB even if it finds that the process of registration was “irregular.”
As a result, Grande said they recommended the cancelation of Guo’s COLB to the SolGen.
