Sen. Cynthia Villar during one of the Senate hearings in this photo taken on May 2023. Senate PRIB file photo / Joseph Vidal
MANILA, Philippines — No one is born in the Philippines without knowing their parents, according Sen. Cynthia Villar.
Villar was reacting to the questions raised about the identity of suspended Bamban Mayor Alice Guo following her alleged involvement in illegal offshore gaming operations in the country.
“She has to explain where she came from. Parang walang nakakilala sa kanya,” Villar said in an interview in Manila on Wednesday.
(She has to explain where she came from. It seems no one knows her.)
“Hindi nya masabi kung sino ang Nanay nya. Wala namang pinanganak sa Pilipinas na hindi alam kung sino ang Nanay o Tatay,” she added.
(She could not say who her mother is. There’s no one born in the Philippines who doesn’t know who their mother or father is.)
Guo has repeatedly said that she was a lovechild of her Chinese father Jian Zhong Guo, who later used Angelito Guo as his Filipino name, and the family’s former house help, Amelia Leal.
But some senators, including Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, suspects Guo’s mayor is also Chinese.
Gatchalian particularly pointed to a certain Lin Wenyi, whose name consistently appeared in financial statements of the Guo’s family businesses.
Immigration records also showed that Lin had frequently traveled to China with Guo’s father, the senator also said earlier.
Lin likewise appeared as the registered mother of a certain Guo Hua Ping in a Special Investors Resident Visa that the senator obtained from the Board of Investments. He suspects Mayor Guo and Guo Hua Ping are one and the same.
In an interview over Radyo 630, Gatchalian noted the conflicting statements of Mayor Guo and her father about her mother.
Guo claimed she was a lovechild of her father and Leal, but the latter was also registered as the mother of the three other siblings of the mayors based on their late filing of birth certificates.
“So ibig sabihin apat na beses nabuntis yung kasambahay niya sa apat na iba’t ibang anak,” Gatchalian pointed out.
(So that means the housemaid got pregnant four times and gave birth four different children)
“Parang imposible naman na yung kasambahay apat na beses na buntis at nanganak sa apat na mga anak ni Guo Jian Zhong,” he added.
(It seems impossible that the housemaid got pregnant four times and gave birth to four children of Guo Jian Zhong.)
Villar, meanwhile, expressed concern over the possible abuse of the law that allows delayed birth registration in the country.
“We should be careful about those things. Kasi ibig mong sabihin, magiging Filipino citizen ang hindi naman Filipino, that’s dangerous,” she said.
(We should be careful about those things. Because this means someone who isn’t Filipino would become a Filipino citizen, and that’s dangerous.)