BI still clueless about Alice Guo’s escape months into Senate probe

Alice Guo | FILE PHOTO: Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Months after the Senate launched an investigation, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) admitted that it’s still clueless about how dismissed Bamban Mayor Alice Guo and her siblings managed to leave the Philippines and evade jurisdiction.

This revelation left Sen. Risa Hontiveros dismayed, leading her to ask during a public hearing on Tuesday whether the Philippine government was content with the lack of a clear explanation regarding how Alice, along with her siblings Shiela and Wesley, was able to flee the country.

“Because if we just stop at this status, we’re inutile as a country. It’s been four months, and we still don’t know how fugitives managed to slip past our borders undetected? If you could tell the committee on record— in short, the BI still doesn’t know to this day. Will you make that of record?” asked Hontiveros, to which BI Intelligence Division chief Fortunato Manahan answered yes.

“Alright, you can imagine the frustration that the whole committee and the Senate would feel in this kind of situation where we still haven’t solved it — it shouldn’t even be a mystery; it should be a simple matter of fact that we should have already figured out by now. This is very regrettable,” said Hontiveros.

READ: BI: Alice Guo fled to Malaysia by air

In October 2024, BI officer-in-charge Atty. Joel Anthony Viado told the Senate that Alice Guo and her cohorts fled the country to Malaysia by air, at least based on the BI’s preliminary findings.

“She entered Malaysia [by] air on July 18,” Viado said then.

During the October hearing, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada interrupted, asking how certain Viado was that Guo had indeed left the country for Malaysia by air.

READ: Alice Guo reveals she fled Philippines aboard a yacht

“We’re basing it on the confirmation as to her actual entry into Kuala Lumpur,” answered Viado.

Estrada questioned if this means that Guo’s earlier admission that she, with Shiela and Wesley, boarded multiple boats to Malaysia was a lie.

“If she went to Malaysia via sea it might have been through Sabah, but there was no record of entry of Alice Guo into Sabah on July 19, 2024,” Viado insisted.

At that time, Hontiveros explained that there was a Sabah stamp on Guo and her cohorts’ passports, but it was proven to be fake. This means that as far as BI is concerned, there’s no record of their entry into the state on July 19.

Both Alice and Shiela earlier said they boarded three boats to flee the Philippines: a small boat, a “fishing ship,” and later on transferred to a small “blue or green” boat direct to Malaysia.