Suspended Bamban Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo | INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
MANILA, Philippines — Suspended Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo could become a state witness in the ongoing investigations into illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) if she is able to “point at other principals higher than her.”
This was according to Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) spokesperson Winston Casio during Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.
“If she appears to be the least guilty and she will be able to point at other principals higher than her, why not?” he replied when asked if there was a chance that Guo could be a state witness in illegal Pogo probes.
READ: Bamban Mayor Alice Guo charged with human trafficking
But Casio noted that, as of this time, Guo does not appear to be the least guilty at all.
“The way we appreciate the evidence on hand of what we have now so far as of this time, she is not the least guilty. So we wouldn’t be open to that discussion until, unless, we get higher on the food chain in relation to the crime that this group committed,” he explained.
It is also the prosecutor who would be able to evaluate Guo’s probability of becoming a state witness and not the PAOCC, he added.
READ: Alice Guo as state witness? No way, says Gatchalian
The mayor is under hot water for her alleged connection with illegal Pogos in Bamban.
Questions about her citizenship were first raised during a Senate inquiry after Sen. Risa Hontiveros noted that her birth was registered only in 2013, or 17 years after she was supposedly born in 1986.
Her repeated responses to senators’ inquiries also ignited speculation that she could be a “Chinese asset.”
Last Thursday, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian told reporters that Guo cannot be made a state witness in the ongoing probes into illegal Pogos also because she is “not the least guilty.”
“She is at the center of the Hong Sheng Pogo hub [in Bamban] by applying for the Letter of No Objection and other LGU (local government unit) permits,” he said.
But Gatchalian pointed out that she could “reduce her culpability” by cooperating with special teams assigned to investigate her involvement as well as that of her family and friends.
“To reduce her culpability, she can reveal everything she knows about the operations of both the Bamban Pogo and the Porac Pogo, as the two are interconnected,” the senator said.