“PILIPINO po ako. Hindi po ako spy. Mahal ko po ang Pilipinas.”
So declared Alice Guo when asked in congressional hearings if she was a spy for China.
The vehement and emotionally charged denial was met with skepticism, dismay, disbelief, frustration, and even anger by some senators and House members looking into her involvement in POGOs (or Philippine offshore gaming operators) and other illegal activities, questionable citizenship, ascension to the mayorship of Bamban in Tarlac, and links to China.
“Liar,” she was told, not just once, but more than twice.
But come to think of it, she could be telling the truth – because she may truly not know that she is a spy.
This is not to say though that she is or is not a spy. That has yet to be ascertained.
Of course, no spy will admit to being one. That’s why spies employ all sorts of cover to skip detection. And every spy is trained in the law of omerta. But the best spies are probably those who don’t know that they are spies.
In most cases, spies operate through front organizations, which serve as their cover. The United States Central Intelligence Agency, Israel’s Mossad, Russia’s KGB, and other intelligence agencies have been known to employ businesses and other organizations to protect and advance their respective interests and cover their tracks. Even criminal organizations can serve as fronts for espionage–or at least spies can be embedded in such organizations.
Imbedding spies, in war and in peace, is a common practice not only among states but among business corporations as well. If there is state espionage, there is also business espionage.
One celebrated case of espionage was that of Eli Cohen, an Egypt-born Israeli who was recruited by Mossad and planted in Syria as a businessman under the assumed name of Kamel Amin Thabet. Cohen first operated out of Argentina in 1961, as a rich businessman who ingratiated himself to Arab leaders living in Buenos Aires, hosting parties and dispensing gifts and favors, even contributing to the then-Syrian opposition Ba’aht Party.
In 1962, a year before the Ba’aht Party seized power in Syria, Cohen moved to Damascus where he replicated his Buenos Aires operations, dining and whining with Syrian political and military figures, hosting parties and dispensing wine and women. So close was Cohen to the corridors of power that he became chief adviser to the Syrian defense minister. Were he not captured and hanged in 1965 he would have eventually been appointed deputy defense minister.
Without saying hers is one, Guo’s alleged “spy” life seems to bear some resemblance with that of Cohen–running a business cover and moving up the political ladder. Having been elected mayor in an otherwise obscure town, Guo was well on her path to the corridors of political power under cover of POGO and the other businesses that she owned and ran. And, although it has not been definitively established in the congressional hearings, she appears to have political connections in high places.
Filipinos, then and now, have also been involved in espionage. In 1940, for example, Rufo Romero, a captain in the Philippine Scouts, was convicted by a US Army court martial of selling military secrets to the Spanish Consulate, which had served as a go-between for Japan.
In 2007, Filipino-American Leonardo Aragoncillo, a retired US Marine and former FBI analyst who also worked under former Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney, was convicted of stealing classified information and passing them on to opposition leaders in the Philippines. His co-accused, Michael Ray Aquino, former deputy director of the PNP, was also convicted and sentenced to six years and four months in prison.
Sometime in 1966, the CIA operative in the Philippines (who was said to be a ranking official of the US embassy) was suspected of compiling dossiers on Philippine government officials and hiding them under the very noses of the Justice Department, specifically within the National Bureau of Investigation, in connivance with some agents/officials of the Bureau. On orders of then justice Secretary Claudio Teehankee, NBI regional director Ponciano Fernando “raided” the offices of the NBI domestic intelligence division searching for the dossiers.
This incident prompted Senators Jovito Salonga and Juan Sumulong to seek amendments to the 1941 Anti-Espionage Law, Commonwealth Act No. 616. Nothing came of the proposal, so today, amid the Malice in POGuO Land saga, the Senate is again deliberating amendments to the archaic law.
It is deplorable that in this age of a borderless world and unimaginable threats to national security that are not even military in nature, our law on espionage and national security dates back to the time when the Philippines was still a US colony.
So, is Guo a spy? What lies ahead for Alice in POGuO Land?
Abangan and susunod na kabanata!