Photos from Senate of the Philippines/OSP
MANILA, Philippines — For P1 billion, dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo was allegedly willing to pay to make all her troubles go away.
This was revealed by former Senator Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday, citing information from a Filipino-Chinese friend, who was allegedly offered the money by the former mayor before she fled the country in July
“Noong medyo ipit na ipit na at nagtatago na yata, medyo komontak sa kanya through a common friend siguro at ang sabi sa kanya kung mailalapit niya si Alice Guo sa kanyang contact,” Lacson said over Radyo 630, quoting his friend.
(When things were getting really tight and she was probably hiding, she somewhat got in touch with him, maybe through a common friend, and was told that if he could introduce Alice Guo to his contact.)
“Sabi niya, ang offer daw na pera ay P1 billion basta’t matulungan lang daw siya,” he added.
(According to him, the offer was P1 billion as long as she got help)
The money was not in exchange for her escape but “for her legal problems with PAOCC (Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission), etc,” Lacson clarified in a message to Inquirer.net
“Their meeting took place before she went on the lam,” he added.
He described his friend as a big businessman with dealings in China and claims to have connections to some personalities within the circle of the First Family.
“The Fil-Chi trader said, he did not relay the message [to his contact],” Lacson said.
To prove his story, the trader even showed photos of him and Guo together, the former senator said.
The trader did not also say if he had business transactions with Guo but Lacson is certain that his friend is not into Philippine offshore gaming operations “directly or otherwise.”
Guo is currently detained at the Philippine National Police custodial center after her arrest in Indonesia last September 4.
READ: Alice Guo arrested in Indonesia – DOJ, NBI
She fled the country in July after the Senate ordered her arrest for her repeated failure to participate in its investigation into her alleged links to Philippine offshore gaming operators in her town in Bamban.
In the radio interview, Lacson suggested a deeper look not only into Guo’s back ground but also her connections as he warned of the “potential risk to national security.”
“Testimonials coming from her former constituents were one in saying that she’s governing well in Bamban, Tarlac. It cannot be ruled out that if she gets out of her issues now, she might run for congresswoman. And if she were a foreign spy, that is bad for us because as a member of Congress, she would have access to highly classified documents due to her high security clearance,” he said in a mixof Filipino and English.
He then urged the intelligence community to include Guo in their essential elements of information and do a deeper record check and background investigation.