Francis Escudero —SENATE PRIB
MANILA, Philippines — Even Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero is unconvinced that no Filipino helped ex-mayor Alice Guo (real name: Guo Hua Ping) escape.
“I do not believe Alice’s assertion that no other Filipino helped her for I am of the belief that there were other personalities, possibly officials in government other than the BI (Bureau of Immigration), who helped her,” Escudero said in a statement on Tuesday.
“However, non-Filipino actors who helped her escape should also be held to account including the ones she mentioned. That they are allegedly ‘not here’ should not stop us from trying to get them, especially Alice’s financiers and bosses,” he also said.
Escudero was referring to the name of a person Guo wrote on a piece of paper when she was compelled during Monday’s hearing of the Senate committee on women to identify who helped her flee the country last July.
READ: Alice Guo: No Filipino, only a foreigner, helped me flee Philippines
According to Guo, who was ousted as mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac province, the person she wrote on the paper was the only one who helped her escape.
“No Filipino helped you? So the only person that you wrote on the paper was the only one who helped you?” Sen. Risa Hontiveros, chair of the committee on women, asked during the hearing. Guo only nodded in response.
Guo also gave the same response when Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada followed up on Hontiveros’ query.
“That’s impossible. It’s impossible that nobody helped you escape from the Philippines,” Estrada said partly in Filipino.
“But there was really nobody,” Guo answered in Filipino.
READ: ‘I am Alice Guo,’ insists ex-mayor when asked, ‘Are you Guo Hua Ping?’
Guo likewise confirmed that she and her siblings, Wesley, and Shiela Guo (real name: Zhang Mier) — earlier identified as her sister — left the country by sea.
Alice Guo was apprehended in Indonesia on September 4 while Shiela and the former mayor’s alleged business partner, Cassandra Ong, were nabbed on August 21, also in Jakarta.
Their arrests were in connection with the Senate probe into Alice Guo’s alleged links to Philippine offshore gaming operators.
On alleged threats to Alice Guo’s life, Escudero said: “I tend to believe that there are credible threats to her life but it would depend on the extent of her revelations and if she will tell the whole truth.”
The ex-mayor repeatedly used the alleged threats to her life as a reason to evade answering some questions raised by senators during Monday’s hearing.