A senator is calling for the removal of a town’s mayor suspected of being a Chinese national, possibly violating a law that requires local citizenship for all elected officials.
Senator Risa Hontiveros said the National Bureau of Investigation found that the fingerprints of Alice Guo – who was elected mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac province, north of Manila, in 2022 – matched those of a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping.
The head of the investigation bureau has confirmed the fingerprint match in a GMA News report, citing the agency’s database.
“She is a Chinese national masquerading as Filipino citizen to facilitate crimes,” Hontiveros, an opposition senator, said in a statement on Friday.
The call for the mayor to step down comes at a time of heightened tensions between Manila and Beijing with the two countries’ militaries clashing repeatedly over contested territory in the South China Sea.
Guo’s lawyer Stephen David said they have not examined the fingerprint results.
He had earlier denied any relation between Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping.
Guo, in testimonies before the Senate that has been investigating an online gaming operation in Bamban since May, maintained that she is a Filipino citizen with a Philippine passport.
Guo said she grew up on a farm with a Chinese father. She said she was abandoned by her Filipino mother when she was a baby so her birth was only registered when she was 17 years old.
Guo has been suspended from her post as she faces scrutiny over her nationality and alleged links to her town’s China-centric online casinos locally known as Philippine offshore gaming operators or Pogo.
She has also repeatedly denied links to alleged illegal operations at these casinos. — Bloomberg
