Gatchalian: BI knew Guo gone, kept Marcos in the dark

Sherwin Gatchalian and Alice Guo

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) was aware that Alice Guo had left the Philippines last month and kept the whereabouts of the suspected Chinese national and dismissed mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, from President Marcos, Sen. Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian said on Friday.

Also on Friday, BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said Guo’s sister, Shiela, was also a Chinese national, who carried a Chinese passport in the name of Zhang Mier. She was arrested on Thursday by Indonesian authorities and sent back to the Philippines on the same day from Batam, Indonesia, which the sacked mayor and her siblings had visited.

According to Gatchalian, he was told by his BI source that immigration authorities already knew that the former mayor and her three siblings had slipped out of the country before Sen. Risa Hontiveros divulged her escape in a speech at the Senate on Aug. 19.

READ: Alice Guo’s controversies: From Senate Pogo probe to her escape

“Even the President was kept in the dark with that information. From what I have been told, they knew about this two weeks ago,” Gatchalian said in a media briefing on Zoom.

Hontiveros said Guo traveled to Kuala Lumpur on July 18 in spite of the arrest order issued against her by the Senate for repeatedly refusing to attend its inquiry into the illegal activities of a Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) in Bamban.

She said the information was provided to her by the National Bureau of Investigation, not the immigration bureau.

Hontiveros headed the investigation of Pogo activities and the crimes linked to them, including human trafficking, torture and murder.

She and Gatchalian were the senators most active in the inquiry, which also led to evidence which allegedly established that Guo was a Chinese national who entered the country as a young girl identified as Guo Hua Ping.

“I have become suspicious now because why do they have to keep this secret from us and the public?” Gatchalian said.

“They probably want to cover up the fact that Guo Hua Ping was able to escape all our law enforcement agencies. It’s not good that they hid this information almost a month (after Guo left),” he said.

The BI should have notified the Senate or Mr. Marcos that they had gotten wind of information on Guo’s possible location.

‘Slap on the face’

Its failure to keep the President posted about Guo’s movements appeared to be the reason he was so upset with what had happened, the senator added.

“This is a slap on the face of the entire government because this is a high-profile case and the whole world knows about this, but still Guo got through our law enforcement agencies,” he said.

Gatchalian, who had pushed for a nationwide ban on Pogos before the President last month ordered them shut down, thanked Hontiveros for making public Guo’s escape that eventually led to the arrest of her sister and their associate, Katherine Cassandra Li Ong on Thursday.

Ong was flown back to Manila with Guo’s sister.

A day after Hontiveros’ speech, the President promised that “heads will roll” and corrupt officials will be punished to the “fullest extent of the law” for allowing Guo to escape.

Strong statement

“After the strong pronouncement of our President, the next day the Indonesian (authorities) arrested (Sheila and Ong). So (his voice) is very critical,” he said, adding: “His very strong statement most likely triggered the enforcement agencies to reach out to our Indonesian counterparts.”

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Shiela Guo may eventually be deported after evidence indicated that, like her sister, she is not a Filipino.

“In relation to this, the DOJ, BI and NBI will jointly file deportation and misrepresentation charges against the sibling of embattled ex-mayor Alice Guo for pretending to be a Filipino citizen when in fact she is a Chinese national,” a DOJ statement said on Friday.

According to NBI Director Jaime Santiago, Shiela Guo’s fingerprints matched that of Zhang Mier, making them “one and the same person.”

Quo warranto petition

“So, we can conclude that Shiela L. Guo, who is currently in our custody, is indeed Chinese,” Santiago said at a press briefing on Friday.

The BI on Friday said her Chinese passport was valid until 2031.

On July 29, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) filed a “quo warranto” petition in the Manila Regional Trial Court against the dismissed mayor for her “ineligibility” to hold public office in the Philippines because she is a foreigner.

Passport Act violation

The OSG said there were no credible official records that established her Philippine citizenship by either birth or naturalization.

“As abundantly shown by various government records, respondent Guo Hua Ping, aka Alice Leal Guo is the daughter of two Chinese citizens, Lin Wenyi and Guo Jian Zhong,” according to the petition.Santiago said Sheila Guo would be charged with violating the Philippine Passport Act.

The DOJ did not say whether a case would be filed against Ong, who carried a Philippine passport.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Law and Human Rights on Thursday said that local immigration officers flagged Ong ang Shiela Guo as “suspicious foreigners” who entered Batam this week.

Help from ‘ZJ’

Jakarta said a certain Singaporean national named “ZJ” helped Alice Guo’s group book a room at the Harris Hotel Batam Center for three days before being arrested on Aug. 21 at Mega Mall Batam Center. Guo and her brother were not together with her sister and Ong at the time.

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission identified ZJ as Zhang Jie, the former president of Lucky South 99, the illegal Pogo hub in Porac, Pampanga, which was raided and shut down in June.

Sheila Guo and Ong are currently in the custody of the NBI.

Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez, one of the cochairs of the four-panel “quad comm” of the House of Representatives, which is conducting its own investigation of Pogos, said the pair might be “better off” in their custody.

House detention for Ong

Ong, specifically, has been ordered detained in the House for 30 days after her repeated failure to appear in its ongoing Pogo inquiry.

“Because of our arrest order, she should be here … it is important that she is under our jurisdiction,” Fernandez said.

Noting the separate Senate and DOJ investigations, he said that the quad comm didn’t want to “make it seem like we’re fighting over who gets to detain them.”

“So ultimately,” Fernandez said, “we will have to discuss this with the Senate and the Department of Justice.”

Ong was included in the quad comm’s probe after Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. chair Al Tengco revealed that she and former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque sought a meeting with him last year to discuss the unpaid arrears of Lucky South 9.