ALICE Guo, by all accounts, managed to build a compendium of crimes during her rapid rise to power and affluence in the quiet countryside of Bamban, Tarlac.
But despite her helicopter and hog farm, she is but a tiny pimple in the unholy mess that she hinted at when she regaled the spellbound senators with her tales of a made-up childhood on a farm.
Long before Guo bought eight parcels of land in Barangay Anupul, Bamban in 2019, she was already a seasoned veteran at exploiting the loopholes of our laws.
‘That they all miserably failed is not a mere cause for concern — it is a signal fire that the dikes have been breached and the floodwaters are bearing down on us all.’
By the time she decided to join the political circus in 2022, she was not only confident that she is going to win — she had also mapped out how to use that public post to maximum effect.
She secured titles for her properties, got her business listed as a legitimate enterprise regardless of its shady operations, and started rubbing elbows with the power brokers in Tarlac province.
Just before everything imploded, Alice Guo’s budding career as a public official got her listed as a member of one of the country’s powerful political parties.
In a dirty business that employs hundreds of Filipinos, it took an escaped Vietnamese to expose Alice Guo and her fully constructed persona.
It was pure dumb luck that led authorities to discover the vile goings on behind the gates of Guo’s secret domain.
From starting her 10-hectare walled empire in February 2019 to being unmasked in March 2024, she had a carte blanche for more than five years. She toyed with our laws, paid for confidentiality, and manipulated the system to her advantage.
For the casual observers of this country’s bureaucratic tangle, that by itself should trigger more than a few alarm bells.
But for policy makers and guardians of good governance, Guo is a symptom of a malignancy that is devouring the country from the inside.
The simple licenses, permits, and certifications were supposed to trigger trip wires when an illegal alien tries to buy his way in.
The passport processes, our immigration laws, the fire inspections, and the filing of certificates of candidacy were expected to burn the Alice Guo’s when they attempt what she accomplished.
That they all miserably failed is not a mere cause for concern — it is a signal fire that the dikes have been breached and the floodwaters are bearing down on us all.
Where ordinary Filipinos seeking employment overseas, putting up a small business, or trying to claim retirement benefits are given the runaround, Alice Guo had regulatory agencies unrolling a red carpet for her sole benefit.
The rules and regulations that were intended to protect the rights of Filipinos and legitimate visitors were bastardized to shield the corrupt and the wicked.
This cannot be allowed to continue if the government hopes to regain public confidence. Our system of laws has to function the way it was intended without being rendered pliant to intimidation or bribery.
Alice Guo is not the one on trial, our entire government bureaucracy is.
